Four days after a devastating fire ripped through a former Tamaqua church, there has been no official word regarding a cause and the investigation continues.

A state police fire marshal based at the Reading barracks has visited the site but is still waiting to speak with the building’s owner, Stephen Bennett, founder of the nonprofit Faces of The World Inc. Bennett has been working overseas for many months and has been largely out of reach.

A professional portrait artist on assignment, Bennett only recently learned of Saturday’s devastating blaze and expressed shock through social media on Wednesday upon realizing the level of destruction.

“I lost my home and studio,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

I watched my home burn on YouTube. Hundreds of firemen saved my building. I am in shock. Devastated. I am suffering.

“My faith and friends are keeping me going. Eighty percent of my life’s work (is) lost. Hundreds of paintings burned. Send us prayers. I am in Indonesia and my family is at the location working to save what is left.”

Bennett indicated that no insurance coverage was in force at the property. He described his situation as “uninsurable.”

Bennett’s sisters, Sarah and Judy Bennett, arrived in Tamaqua earlier this week to organize cleanup efforts on behalf of their brother.

According to estimates, some 500 acrylic portraits were stored inside the 1852 structure. Many of those were large wall-size murals, some of which were on display along walls two-stories high. Others had been carefully rolled, wrapped and archived. It is unclear how many were destroyed or damaged or how many might be salvageable.

On Tuesday, family and friends started a GoFundMe page, “Save Stephen’s Paintings and Studios.” By late Wednesday, the page reported donations of $4,355 of a $100,000 goal.

According to a narrative on the funding site, Bennett needs funds to secure the building, address the fire, smoke and water damage, travel back to the United States and salvage original paintings that have been his life’s work.

Bennett is an internationally known painter who has dedicated his life to seeking out indigenous people throughout the world to capture their faces on canvas. He believes his world portraits are important tributes to cultures rapidly fading.

“To look into the eyes of these portraits is to experience our common humanity,” he says on his Facebook page.

Faces of the World’s mission is to increase cultural pride and affirm the importance of cultures which have been the true guardians of our planet, according to Bennett.

“I hope my portraits reveal that every single person of every race and culture is interconnected, indispensable and radiant with astonishing beauty.”