WITH many parts of Cumbria still reeling from the floods, the BBC's Songs of Praise team paid Kendal a visit to see how residents are coping.

One of the show's hosts, John Craven, visited Sandylands Methodist Church, to observe how community spirit and the strength of people's faith was pulling them through the ordeal.

John Craven, who presented Newsround during the 1970s and '80s, said: "We are here because of the serious flooding in the last couple of months and what we are doing on the programme is looking at the community response and especially the way the church has become a sort of extra emergency service during this time.

"We're just capturing the spirit of the people, the fact that so many acts of kindness happened during the floods and friendships have been made with people being brought together.

"Songs of Praise these days days is a programme that looks at how faith is responding to various aspects of life. We are looking at how the local people have coped with this catastrophe and how the church has been helping them."

One of the stories they paid particular attention to was that of newly-weds Dave and Sarah Benjamin of Appleby Road, Kendal.

They had been helping flood victims at Sandylands Methodist Church when the floods began in early December.

When they returned home, they found four foot of water in their home and all their belongings swirling around the ground floor.

The couple married in September and then moved into their newly-furbished Appleby Road home. Mr Benjamin, 56, has leukaemia and is really poorly and struggling with the stress of the flooding. Their biggest fear is that if they move back in and nothing is put in place to prevent further flooding.

They are currently living in accommodation at K Village for the next six months.

Mrs Benjamin said: "We were just in complete shock. The house is now empty, we've lost everything from the ground floor. We're just lucky that we were insured."

The full story of Sarah and Dave's struggle and the rest of the feature on Sandylands Methodist Church will be screened at 4.25pm on Sunday (January 17).