Street
Thursday, Sept. 26 was a relatively calm day on the mountain. There was a steady rain throughout the day. By that evening, the Doe River which runs on the other side of the back yard at the parsonage had filled its banks, but it was still contained and I went to bed with optimism that things might not get as bad as had been forecasted.
Even with the spirit of optimism I knew I would need to keep a check on the river through the early morning hours. As the rain got heavier and the river got higher, I felt a renewed sense of what it is to remain alert and watchful and “to be ready for every good work” (Titus 3:1).
As a pastor, I have experienced what it is like to lead a church family through opening the church as a shelter at 8 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 27, as Helene rolled through — turning Sunday School rooms into sleeping rooms for up to 30 people who either had no way to get home or didn’t have a home habitable to go back to, using the church grounds as a distribution and coordinating recovery and relief teams. Here are a few key essentials to making it through the surge after the storm.
Time with God in His Word and prayer
I had been preparing during the week of the storm to preach Matthew 22:34-40 where Jesus says the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor. In meditating on those verses and praying from those verses through week, God prepared me to ask this question Friday morning, How can we love Him and our neighbor during this storm?
We had made no plans to open the church building as a shelter before Friday morning, but realizing that my family would be wise to leave the parsonage that morning as the water kept getting closer to the house and hearing the evacuation siren blaring from the fire department, I knew with confidence that our building, which had been relocated after being damaged beyond repair in a flood in 1998, was now situated in a great spot for our neighbors who had to evacuate.
Deep relationships
My wife, Carley, was not only on board from the get-go with everything that transpired since that Friday morning, she was also alongside me throughout.
One of our deacons at the church, Tyler, brought his family to open the church with us that morning. Tyler has been a friend since I came to the church over nine years ago. My parents, my wife’s mother, and my best friend from childhood made their way up as quickly as the roads were opened to help with work that needed to be done at the parsonage after the storm.
Two very close friends of mine, Travis Tyler and Wesley Duncan, who pastor churches in the Elizabethton area, were a constant support before the storm and they have been constant since the storm. Each of these dear brothers and sisters in Christ have been a tremendous blessing through this time. “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).
Recognizing ways God has prepared you
I am extremely grateful for the disaster relief ministries of so many state conventions. I have had the opportunity to serve with both North Carolina Baptist DR and Tennessee Baptist DR. There are Tennessee DR teams serving in Roan Mountain as I write this.
The very small part of me that felt like I had any preparation for all the ministry and relief that we became a part of at First Baptist Church in response to the storm came from my previous experience with disaster relief.
The Lord used this knowledge to prepare me to lead in this response.
Knowing God can do exceedingly and abundantly more
As far as numbers go, we are a small church. We normally have around 100 in attendance on Sunday mornings. We have a relatively small facility. We had just upgraded the sink in our church kitchen to be big enough to wash the warmer pans in. How God used our church family and facility in this response is mind-boggling.
We had at least eight different families at one time or another sleeping in our Sunday School rooms. In the 14 days following the storm we served up to 1,400 hot meals a day out of the church kitchen.
Within the first 12 days following the storm, there were supplies distributed to several thousand families from the church facility even as teams went out to help open roads and travel to reach those heavily impacted.
The number of volunteers and amount of supplies that God brought our way was unimaginable for our small church in our small community.
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21). B&R
