Rebecca Alonzo, author of The Devil In Pew #7, shares a powerful story filled with drama, trauma, forgiveness and healing. 

In 1969, her father, Robert Nichols—along with his wife Ramona--moved to Sellerstown, North Carolina, to serve as a pastor. There he and his wife were blessed with two children (Daniel & Rebecca) and found a small community eager to welcome them―with one exception. Glaring at Pastor Nichols from pew number seven each week was a powerful local man named Horry Watts, obsessed with controlling the church and community. Determined to get rid of anyone who stood in his way, Watts unleashed a plan of terror more devastating and violent than the Nichols family could have ever imagined—beginning with dozens of prank calls a day to other forms of intimidation, escalating to drive-by shootings and dynamite explosions ten different times in a 2.5-year window. 

Refusing to be driven away, Rebecca’s father stood his ground until one night when an armed man walked into the family’s kitchen with three guns…and Rebecca’s life was shattered. If anyone had a reason to harbor hatred and seek personal revenge, it would be Rebecca. Yet The Devil in Pew Number Seven tells a different story—the amazing true saga of relentless persecution, one family’s faith and courage in the face of it, and a daughter whose parents taught her the power of forgiveness.