Noel (US), Dec 9 (AP) Thirty miles of rural Missouri separate the two churches, and so much else. One is mostly white; the other hosts services in five languages for a flock that spans the world.

Still, every Tuesday the pastors meet midway between their houses of worship, seeking each other's counsel, sharing their joys — and, more often, their burdens. Because in these pandemic-wracked days, they are sometimes overwhelmed by the crucible of ministering.

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“Whether it be the death of a member, whether it be somebody upset, whether it be losing funding, whether it be just all sorts of different things, or maybe just our own depression, just dealing with being locked up at home,” said pastor Mike Leake at Calvary of Neosho, a Southern Baptist church.

One church was staggered by COVID-19 early on. The other has not had as many infections but has seen congregational life turned upside down.

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The ministers struggle. Pastor Joshua Manning of the Community Baptist Church in Noel was sickened, himself.

And still, they persevere. While they both want to keep parishioners safe, they are determined to carry on with in-person services as long as members of their congregations are eager to attend.

“Our mission to profess the Gospel doesn't end because the coronavirus is here,” Manning said. “And so, we have to still function. We still have to preach. We still have to meet together.”

At the end of a recent Sunday, 11 people were immersed in a turquoise baptismal pool behind the altar of Community Baptist, thousands of miles from the islands in the Pacific Ocean where they were born.

This was the last of five services for five international congregations — in all, about 200 people — who worship at the church in Noel. The town of 1,800 in the far southwest corner of Missouri has a large immigrant population, including Pacific Islanders, Mexicans, Sudanese and refugees from Myanmar.

Most arrived here drawn by the opportunity of a job at the local Tyson Foods chicken processing plant. Many were infected with COVID-19 during the summer when McDonald County, where Noel is located, became a hot spot of the pandemic.

Few places were hit as hard by the virus this summer. Though it has just 23,000 residents, in late June only four other Missouri counties and the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City had recorded more cases.

So far, there have been 1,715 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 24 deaths in McDonald County, according to figures released Dec. 7 by the county's health department.

At the start of June, McDonald County, had fewer than two dozen confirmed cases. By June 23, 498 cases had been confirmed. Three days later, Tyson Foods announced that 371 employees at its chicken processing plant in Noel had tested positive for COVID-19.

Tyson said it is implementing a new COVID monitoring strategy, but did not provide an update on confirmed cases up to December despite multiple requests.

“Just pretty close to overnight, most of our church body and the town largely had it,” Manning said.

At the onset of the pandemic, Manning closed the church for two months to follow safety guidelines. When he reopened it in June, he contracted the virus and was forced to shut it down again for a month.

His wife, Lauren, and three children also were sickened, as was Lauren's grandfather, who died in October. And the church's Spanish-language pastor, Roberto Nunez, died in July. A pastor has been driving more than five hours back and forth from Nebraska to lead the Spanish service each Sunday.

Amid all of this, Manning has pushed ahead.

“I have to basically balance two different things,” the 41-year-old pastor said. “I have to preach the gospel. The church has to meet together. Businesses have to run. Without the poultry industry running, people don't get paid, and people don't eat.”

“You have to have school, you have to have those things. And doing any of those things causes risk. And I know because I've lost people that's close to me.”

Manning worked for two decades as a Walmart manager before he chose to follow his calling and became pastor of the church in 2018.

He had lived in McDonald County for most of his life but knew little about Noel. Though the town near the Missouri-Arkansas-Oklahoma border is named for a founding family, many across the world send Christmas cards to the Noel Post Office so they can be stamped from “The Christmas City.”

Immigrants from Mexico and Central America began to arrive here in the late '90s, drawn by the opportunity to work for Tyson. They were followed by people from Somalia and Sudan, Pacific Islanders and refugees from Myanmar.

Manning said that many had lived in refugee camps in Thailand, and when they first arrived in town, they slept on concrete floors. Now many are homeowners, and their kids attend college.

“If you want to talk about the American Dream on steroids,” he said, “This is it.”

The coronavirus, though, showed the extent of food insecurity in a town where many children rely on free meals at school. Manning started a food pantry at his church's community center.

On a recent Saturday, he drove his van around town and picked up three young congregants from Myanmar's ethnic Karen minority who were excited to volunteer.

He later treated them to pizza and lowered the rim of the basketball court at the community center so they could dunk.

The next day, he delivered a sermon at his church that was translated a couple of sentences at a time. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)