When ReachGlobal Crisis Response enters a crisis, there are four goals: Restoring the Body (the partner church or churches); Making Disciples; Restoring Communities; and Transforming Volunteers. During the time Gail and I spent in Fort Myers this fall we saw vivid examples of the last two goals. This post will tell a story of Restoring Community and another of Transforming Volunteers.
Restoring Community
(the people this story is about are facing each other at the near end of the table. If you look hard you can see Gail and Bob at the far end)
Once upon a time there was a woman, call her Jane, who spent most of her life working in the food service industry, usually as a server. For many years she worked for a restaurant owner named Bob. Bob had a daughter, call her Emma, who hung around the restaurant and eventually began to work there. She and Jane became fast friends, supporting and caring for each other.
Time went by. The restaurant closed. The two families when their separate ways and both families had struggles. Eventually Emma followed her mom into the Emergency Medical field. Jane’s children grew up and moved away, and her husband became ill.
Then came Hurricane Ian. Jane’s home was flooded. So was the home that Emma shared with her mom and her brother. Neither home got quickly rebuilt; both families had other issues that kept them from having the resources to rebuild or the energy to get the help they needed. For most of three years the two families lived in trailers. During that time Jane’s husband succumbed to his illness, leaving Jane alone.
Eventually both Jane and Emma’s mom were connected to Crisis Response. This fall we began rebuilding both homes. We prayed and witnessed to Jesus in word and deed. Emma and her mom were deeply impacted by the ministry of presence and the Word and began to attend our weekly community dinner. Jane was already a believer, though she had not been close the Lord.
Here’s where it gets fun. One Thursday we were working in Jane’s home, but not in Emma’s. But Emma’s mom had bought treats for the team, so she asked if she could bring them over to the home we were working in. (She brought an excessive amount!). She met Jane and didn’t recognize her, but when she told Emma the story, Emma recognized Jane immediately. Emma and her mom went back to Jane’s house, where Emma and Jane had a tearful, joyful reunion.
That night the three of them came to our community dinner. It was such a joy to see them sitting with each other, telling stories and enjoying each other. Jane said “I haven’t laughed in three years.” Then she burst into tears and fell on Emma’s neck. This is what it looks like when God restores community in the aftermath of crisis.
Transforming Volunteers
During a response God works in the lives of homeowners, staff, church members and sometimes quite extraordinarily in the lives of volunteers.
In October we had a team of thirteen volunteers at the Fort Myers site. The unique thing about this team was that they didn’t really know each other. They came from four different churches, three in Miinnesota and one in Pennsylvania. They had met once by zoom.
By the end of the week they were all the fastest of friends. They relied on each other, joked with each other, prayed with each other, commended each other. They worked together well, not just with those from the same church, but with those from the other churches. The one volunteer from Pennsylvania was welcomed into the group with love and joy and bonded as fully as the ones from Minnesota.
What made this experience vivid for us was their text group. Early in the week they added the jobsite staff to a text group they had already formed. From that moment we began to receive texts and follow conversations. And what conversations they were. I remember looking at my phone at one point and seeing 62 new messages – and that was in a space of about thirty minutes. I can’t begin to estimate the total number of messages now on that thread. It has to be in the thousands and it still grows every day.
Some of these messages are transactional (“We’ll meet you at Denny’s”), some are informational (“Annie is on the plane”), but many, many are relational and spiritual. These folks have been transformed into a living community of love. It’s awesome to see.
Here are a few screenshots which show moments in the text group that illustrate its growing community. Enjoy these and praise God that he transforms lives as we serve him.
Shortly after the week began we started to see evidence in the text group of fun and of developing friendships.
As the days went on the friendships deepened and became more focused on praying for each other and giving thanks for one another.
Soon they began to share (many, many) images of themselves at their worksites.
They had a lot of fun with each other.
By Thursday they had been pretty thoroughly united into a community of faith, prayer, and mutual support.
Their departures to different parts of Minnesota (and the country) were sweet and somewhat sad.
After the team left, they were still concerned for the spiritual well-being of the homeowners. Here they are asking about a homeowner whose home they worked on but whom they didn’t have a chance to meet.
And the community continues even after the people are home. This screenshot contains my favorite lines from the whole text group: “Joy keeps leaking out of my eyes.”
Building Community. Transforming Volunteers. These are only some of the impacts that your support can make possible when disaster strikes. To see all our response sites, visit https://www.efca.org/crisis-response. If you would like to serve in Fort Myers, whether for a week or longer, we would be thrilled. Drop us a note or give us a call! (Gail 281-797-8932; gail.degray@efca.org; Bob 281-787-7130; bob.degray@efca.org.) If you would like to support Gail and I, (always needed and appreciated – travel is expensive!), here is the link to our giving site: Bob and Gail DeGray