Faith gives families of miners help, hope.(International Coal Group Inc.'s mine accident)

It is hard to find anything positive about the Sago Mine disaster, other than the recovery of the tragedy's lone survivor, Randal McCloy, Jr. The families of the 12 miners who perished have faced expected grief, along with additional emotional havoc caused by a premature, erroneous announcement that all but one had survived. And questions have been raised concerning the slow response to the disaster. The first rescue teams did not enter the mine until more than 11 hours after the explosion, according to the mine company's owner, International Coal Group.

Nevertheless, the people in the coal mining country of West Virginia are largely a religious people, and many received spiritual comfort in prayer, and emotional and physical support from their churches.

The Sago Baptist Church, across the Buckhannon River from the mine, became a relief center for rescue workers and a place where families and friends of the trapped miners could find and offer each other comfort. Church volunteers opened the building early on the morning of January 2, the day of the explosion, even before the church's pastor, Rev. Wease Day, could arrive. Church leaders provided chairs, food, hot beverages, and a place of physical and spiritual refuge for rescue workers and distraught people waiting for word about the missing men.

The false report that most of the miners had been found alive, and the subsequent letdown when the truth was made known, hit the people hard and severely tested the faith of many. Anna Casto, a cousin of one of the miners who died, told CNN: "We had a miracle, and it was taken away from US."

Most of the people persisted in their faith, however, helped along by their spiritual leaders. Rev. Day told the Baltimore Sun: "A lot of people who go to this church are my family, or, if not, they grew up with me or helped raise me. You can't live in these hills and work ...