KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — If you drive past Ijams Nature Center, heading south, you'll enjoy some beautiful scenery and see some homes and churches.
One of those churches is no longer active, but still important to one man who calls South Knoxville home.
No one preaches in the building anymore. No choir sings. No one prays. But his mission is repairing it.
"I just seen it all running down and I decided that I would put a little paint on it and make the community look a little better," Sonny Webb said.
Sonny Webb has cleaned up, painted, and added wood to the church building near his home in South Knoxville.
"The man that owns it told me to do whatever I wanted to," he said.
The owner keeps the front door locked and that's fine. Sonny Webb doesn't want to fix up the inside. He wants the outside to look good for people who drive by.
"I didn't drive by it, I walked by it. Back when I was coming here we had to walk to church," he said.
Back then it was the Island Home Pike Assembly of God.
Later, the church members moved up the street and the building was sold.
Sonny feels a connection to the old church, a need to fix it up.
"I just done it on my own because it's kind of sentimental. My mother used to come to church here. And I come to church here. And raised my kids in this church," he said.
He married his wife, Orpha, at the church in 1950.
"We had four pretty nice little kids. And now we've got a bunch of grandkids," he said.
Sonny cared for Orpha as her health declined. She died last January.
Then the former contractor found a purpose in the church project. He plans to patch some cracks and paint some more.
"I'm going to paint the other side so I guess and as old as I am probably another couple weeks," he said.
All the while remembering the woman he met there and the life they shared.
He said, "I miss her. I drive by over there, she was buried over there at the funeral home, Berry Funeral Home. I drive by every once in a while and holler at her. Orpha, what are you doing, honey? And I'll say, I still love you."