Three crosses are standing tall again in Blount County after the man who built them says they were vandalized and knocked over earlier this week.
The crosses are on Rowdy McCall's land on Butterfly Gap Road near the Top of the World community. He's owned the property for about eight years, and wanted to put the crosses up on the hillside where they would be seen by cars passing on the road.
"You know, just down at the building, maybe somewhere out here where I could see it when I was down there on the porch, because this is a peaceful place up here," he said.
A couple friends helped him put up the three crosses, as well as a stone tablet with the 10 Commandments and the Bible verse John 3:16.
The center cross was 12 feet tall, while the other two crosses were 8 feet.
McCall said people often come up to the spot they call "God's Office" for devotionals.
He found out about the vandalism on Wednesday night when he was leaving church and a friend showed him a picture someone else had posted on Facebook showing the site "in disarray."
"Initially, I was a little bit upset, but as I began to look at the picture, the thing that I could see and read is I couldn't see the crosses from the road, but I could see the 'Jesus saves' down there, and I got excited because I knew that if it was on Facebook, people were going to see 'Jesus saves,'" he said.
The same friends who helped put the crosses up originally helped McCall reconstruct them on Thursday.
He said he's not looking for the people responsible for the vandalism, but he is praying for them.
"As far as being upset, literally I'm not even the slightest bit," McCall said. "I've prayed for these people. You know, normal people don't do that, so you gotta pray for them and hopefully God starts working in their lives."
"I really felt more sorrow for them than anything ... just to know the heart that it took to do that, and to feel sad for them," he said.
McCall said as long as he owns the property, "God's Office" will stand. He plan to have a service there in the near future.
