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Noah’s Ark toy in church nursery unscathed by Tennessee flood

WAVERLY, Tenn. — It is a 21st-century version of the Book of Genesis. And after a devastating flood, a Tennessee community desperately needed a hopeful sign.

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A church nursery in Waverly was destroyed by Saturday’s flood, but a toy replica of Noah’s Ark inside the room was left untouched by the rising waters, WSMV reported.

“It’s been scary for our community,” Daron Brown, the lead pastor at Waverly Church of the Nazarene, told the television station.

According to Genesis 9:11 in the Bible’s Old Testament, God said to Noah, “Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Brown and his sons might have disagreed as the waters rose Saturday outside the church.

“My two teenage sons were getting into the car out front and water was climbing up the tires,” Brown told WSMV. “I called for them to come back into the building.”

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All three were stuck inside the church.

“Furniture and sheds and vehicles floated by,” Brown told the television station.

When the waters receded, the group walked out of the church. The bottom level of the building was destroyed, including the nursery.

While sorting through the rubble, one of Brown’s sons found the toy ark.

“Me and my brothers went downstairs after the flood to get the water out and I went into the nursery and I found the ark untouched by the water,” Macy Brown told WSMV.

“It gave me chills when I got into the church and Macy told me Noah’s Ark was saved,” Delilah King, the nursery director at the church, told the television station.

Daron Brown said the sight of the untouched ark was a powerful sign -- and a sign of hope as the community tries to recover from a tragedy that has swept through Middle Tennessee.

“There is a lot of beauty and power in that story,” Brown told WSMV.