Church services had ended hours earlier on this warm Sunday in February, but a distinctly spiritual feel drifted throughout the Potomac townhouse where dozens of people were gathered. Up for discussion: resurrecting the nearly 100-year-old Scotland African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church, which had been devastated by a 2019 flood. 

Regardless of their race or religion, where they worshipped or lived, what they did for a living or how much their job paid them, this disparate group of Montgomery County residents seemed to share a common virtue: faith. 

Faith in the ability of people to work together, faith in the power of their community to make change, and faith that the little white church by the side of the road, as some of its parishioners lovingly describe it, would one day stand proud again.