Test of Faith

Photojournalist Lauren Pond was covering a worship service led by a snake-handling Pentecostal pastor when he was fatally bitten by a yellow timber rattlesnake in May. She had been photographing serpent handlers in West Virginia for more than a year.

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Randy “Mack” Wolford handles a rattlesnake during a worship service at the Church of the Lord Jesus in Jolo, W.Va. The Pentecostal Signs Following tradition is rooted in Appalachian folk practices and a literal interpretation of verses in the King James Bible’s Book of Mark.
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A worshipper enters Pastor Harvey Payne’s Church of the Lord Jesus in Jolo, W.Va., during a homecoming worship service on Sept. 3, 2011. The Jolo church is one of the best-known Pentecostal Signs Following (serpent-handling) churches in the region.
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Pastor Randy “Mack” Wolford prays for a congregant at the Church of the Lord Jesus. Wolford, from nearby Bluefield, W.Va., was one of the most active Signs Following pastors in the region and worked to popularize the faith in new areas.
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Pentecostal Holiness Pastor Roger “Pete” Woods, second from left, and others pray for Jimmy Stanley, 72, center, during a service in Stanley’s home. Stanley was paralyzed in a lawn mower accident. Woods is not a snake-handling pastor.
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From left, David Payne, Lyndon Salyers and Pastor Harvey Payne conduct a brief graveside service to honor members of the Elkins family in September 2011 in Jolo, W.Va. Barb and Bob Elkins founded Jolo’s well-known Church of the Lord Jesus in the 1950s.
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Foreground, Nancy Kennedy, left, and Ruth Kennedy dance during a worship service at the Church of the Lord Jesus.
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Chuck Conner reads the Bible during a homecoming worship service at the Church of the Lord Jesus. Once overflowing with worshippers, the church has fallen on hard times, especially as older congregation members die and younger generations move to more prosperous areas. Jolo is located in West Virginia’s McDowell County, where the population has rapidly declined in recent decades.
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From left, Jamie Lloyd of Sidney, Ohio; Randy “Mack” Wolford’s mother, Vicie Haywood; and Donald Dover of North Carolina surround Wolford as he handles a yellow timber rattlesnake shortly after it bit him on the thigh at a worship service on May 27.
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Pastor Randy “Mack” Wolford’s mother, Vicie Haywood, strokes her son’s feet as the pastor lies on a couch in his mother-in-law’s home on May 27. Wolford was bitten by a rattlesnake during an outdoor worship service earlier that day and died about nine hours later.