Texas Pastor Rev. Vickey Gibbs passed away on July 10, from complications from the coronavirus a month after giving a powerful sermon on the virus’ and its devastating impacts on her Houston community. 

According to her wife, Cassandra White,  the 57-year-old pastor died of pneumonia caused by COVID-19, her death came just five days after she had tested positive, CNN reports. 

First attending the Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church in 1981, a congregation that had been widely-known to serve as a refuge for marginalized LBGTQ Christians,  when she was just 18-years-old, Rev. Gibbs would go on to receive her master’s of divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkley, Calif, according to the Houston Chronicle.

It would be until 2014, that she would be officially ordained as a pastor and later called to lead the Resurrection church as the associate pastor the following year. 

Spreading her activism through and beyond her congregation, Rev. Gibbs was an advocate for social justice and had also spoken about the racial tensions in the nation in the wake of the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd just weeks before her untimely passing. 

She also regularly helped in organizing protests and prayer vigils for Sandra Bland and immigrants at the Texas border. 

Rev. Gibbs is survived by her wife, two daughters, Cara and Ariel, and grandson who she nicknamed “Boo.”

For the latest on the coronavirus, check out BET’s blog on the virus, and contact your local health department or visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.