January 1, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode, host David Nakhla talks with three men: one whose family suffered damage to their home through regional flooding, one whose family suffered devastating property loss as a result of a fire, and one who has aided in a variety of disasters over the years. They share with us from the recipient's perspective in order to aid deacons and church families understand and gain some practical tips for aiding those in crises. Their experiences have taught them an appreciation for being a part of Christ’s church during difficult times, how the actions of others helped them through their ordeal and the lessons that can sometimes come in dealing with the aftermath.
Referenced in this episode:
5 Initial Steps to disaster response
OPC Disaster Response website
OPC Disaster Response on Facebook
OPC Disaster Response on Instagram
OPC Disaster Response effort in western North Carolina
OPC Disaster Response effort in Florida
You can find all of our episodes at thereformeddeacon.org. Make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast player, so you don't miss an episode. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for giveaways and more information. Find other resources on OPCCDM.org. Make sure to send us some feedback on your podcast player or ask a diaconal question by going to OPCCDM.org.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carl Miller (00:00):
For those to come who know what to do right at the
beginning, with the checklist,with knowing inventory we never
thought of oh yeah, you need totake an inventory of things and
then also being able to rallyresources.
David Nakhla (00:18):
Welcome to the Reformed Deacon, a casual
conversation with topicsspecifically designed to help
local Reformed deacons.
There are nearly a thousanddeacons in the OPC alone, so
let's take this opportunity tolearn from and encourage one
another.
We're so glad you could join us.
Let's jump into our nextepisode.
Hi, my name is David Nakhla.
(00:39):
I serve the OPC as theAdministrator for the Committee
on Diaconal Ministries and inthat capacity I've also been
serving as the disaster responsecoordinator for the OPC for the
last decade and a half.
This role is particularlyrelevant in today's episode
because we plan to talk aboutpractical ways deacons can be
helpful in responding todisaster situations that have
(01:00):
affected your church.
Local deacons.
As you listen to this episode,I want you to know that, as part
of a connected church, you donot have to be on your own as
you go through these deep waters.
There are ways you can getadditional help from your
Presbyterian, the denomination,and we'll add a link to a
helpful graphic which explainsthe five steps in response to a
(01:21):
disaster.
You can find that in our shownotes.
So, to help us as we think aboutthis topic, we thought we'd
talk today to three people whohave had firsthand suffering and
involvement with disasters.
Carl Miller is now the pastorat Heritage OPC, new Braunfels,
texas.
Carl's home was flooded withseveral feet of water after
(01:42):
Hurricane Harvey dumped as muchas 50 inches of rain on Houston
in 2017.
Ron Elwell is an elder at NewHope OPC in Bridgeton, new
Jersey.
He and his family suffered thecomplete loss of their home and
its contents in 2006.
We do thank the Lord that noone was hurt, but they did lose
everything.
We'll be hearing from Ron in afew minutes and Mike Cloy, an
(02:04):
elder at Landis OPC in Marion,north Carolina, and a member of
the Presbytery of the SoutheastDiaconal Committee.
Mike played a critical role inthe restoration of Neon Reformed
OPC when it was flooded withsix feet of water following
intense rains in easternKentucky.
He has years of disasterresponse experience in the
military and the OPC, oftenrelies on Mike and is very
(02:27):
thankful for his expertise.
So we're thankful, brothers, foryour willingness to share from
your personal experience to helpus to better prepare for such
crises and to perhaps gain somepractical tips.
I'm sure you'd agree thathaving a church family to lean
on in the aftermath of adisaster is not only helpful but
a comfort, reminding you thatyou're not alone.
(02:48):
So thank you for joining us.
To start off with things I'dlike to hear from each of you
about your experience.
Maybe take a few minutes toshare your story.
What happened, your initialresponses physically,
emotionally if you'recomfortable with that and
through that disaster that youfaced, faced, and how long did
it take till your life was quoteunquote back to normal?
(03:09):
Yeah, we can start with you,carl, if you're willing.
Carl Miller (03:12):
Sure, yeah, so my family was affected by Hurricane
Harvey in 2017.
And 17.
And many know that HurricaneHarvey was they call it kind of
a one in a thousand year storm,as often what it's referred to.
(03:34):
As you know, houston andHoustonians are very familiar
with hurricanes, so it's notreally that we don't know how to
handle them, but Harveydefinitely had some very unique
behavior that caused a lot moredamage than others, and so we
were watching Harvey and all ofthe predicted paths and all of
(03:55):
that as it approached, and alarge part of the problem was
just the speed of which thatstorm came, and it was very slow
and also it kind of hookedaround and then came back for a
second pass.
And so for us, the challengeand the hardship was not really
(04:16):
the rain, although there was alot of rain and that definitely
devastated parts of Houston.
Houston's kind of known to bethe concrete jungle, and so
there's not a lot of, you know,grass and ground and land to
absorb water.
You know much these days asmore construction goes on, so a
(04:38):
lot of places northeast Houstonflooded tremendously very
quickly, some areas in the southalso, but where we were in the
northwest, our impact was not somuch rain in our neighborhood,
but it was the after effects ofthat.
So all the rain that came fromup north and hit up north then
(04:59):
came downstream through creeksand whatnot and it just
overwhelmed those creeks.
And so our home was six blocksaway from the creek that we
backed up to, but it blew, thebanks, pushed in, it hit our
house and soaked it about threefeet up the walls and we have a
(05:22):
two-story home.
We weren't thinking it wasgoing to get that high, but it
did, and it pushed six blocksbeyond our house too.
So it was a lot of water and asit hit and came in right before
the really devastating partsand where it was really flooding
in came in, the Nashville Guardcame through the neighborhood
(05:45):
and said you know you need toleave, it's going to get worse,
you know it's time to go.
We're thankful that my sisterand her family live about five
minutes down the road in adifferent neighborhood, but they
had high ground and so thewater didn't affect them, so we
were safe there, but we did haveto evacuate the home.
It was an odd thing to seepeople literally boating around
(06:09):
the streets of our neighborhoodon jet skis and other just flat
bottom boats trying to get out,get stuff out.
We did make it back into theneighborhood.
After a few days of the waterbeing there, they released a dam
down south of us which thenallowed our area for the water
(06:31):
to kind of go downstream and getout of our area.
So we got into the house and itwas really hard.
We anticipated what it wasgoing to be like just in our own
thoughts, but actually seeingit was quite different.
And you know, for me personallyit was one of those things
where it's, you know, reallyputting your faith into action,
(06:54):
to where your faith hits theroad and you really need to
practice, even in your thoughts,what you preach and how you
encourage others.
On the one hand, I was trying tobe strong for my family.
On the other hand, I was like Ihad a lot of questions.
You know, lord, why this ishuge A lot of loss of our
(07:16):
possessions.
We tried to get a lot upstairs,but you know we were only
successful to be able to do somuch, not the big furniture, and
so we lost a lot of things.
A lot of things were not onlyflooded with water that they sat
in for days, but also then itwas just the air and moisture in
(07:40):
the air, molds, concerns.
You can't salvage books at thatpoint.
I had tons of books in mylibrary, you can't, you know.
There were other things likethat.
So it was a lot of prayer butit was a lot of and a lot of
sorrow, but I was thankful tothe Lord for the resolve that he
gave Stacey and I and the kids,because it was also a time to
(08:02):
be a good witness and atestimony of his grace and to
really trust him in this, and soI did a series of live streams,
like throughout the whole eventand just kind of sharing our
experience day by day anddifferent things that we were
going through and all of that.
(08:22):
When we got in and we were ableto get back to the house that
same day, our deacons werealready deployed and they were
coming to meet us and so one ofour deacons met us there
actually two of them, but beforethat, even by a day or a half a
day.
It was really just such awonderful thing.
(08:44):
There was a man who was retiredmilitary showed up at our door
and he said hey, my name is Rick.
I know you don't know me fromAdam, but my name is Rick and
I'm here to help and I was like,well, thank you, lord, okay.
And so he's like, well, so whatdo we need to do?
And he had some experience, youknow, helping with disaster
(09:08):
relief in the past and but hehad traveled out of state, from
out of state to come down.
He had heard about the, thestorm, and actually he made some
brief contact with David andDavid sent him on and but it was
just a such a blessing becausehe I mean we were trying to get
our thoughts together and figureout what we were trying to do
(09:29):
and what we should do first weweren't entirely sure kind of
fumbling, and he was like, allright, well, let's start getting
stuff out, let's take aninventory.
And I mean he really kind ofhelped organize us even for that
brief time before our diaconatearrived and so anyhow.
So that was just a tremendousblessing.
(09:49):
And then he stayed for weeks tohelp eventually help do some
site coordination with our houseand stuff.
But deacons came, church came, alot of the members of the
church helped muck out the house, the bottom floor, take it down
to the studs, and then Davidand other members of the
disaster relief eventually camein, did assessments, mark Sumter
(10:13):
was there, and so just a greattime of help in the initial
phases.
But then we had over 150, Ithink we counted people from all
over the OTC and other NAPARCdenominations that sent teams
over the next months to come inand help put us back together
(10:34):
again, and a lot of them haddifferent expertises carpenters,
electricians, all sorts ofpeople.
It was great.
It was fantastic.
That was a great blessing tosee the broader church come and
minister to our family andreally helped us get back
together again in a way in whichwe could then sell the house or
(10:57):
have it be available for saleas I was going to be moving on
to other aspects of ministrythat then led to me coming here
to New Braunfels eventually.
So yeah, it was a tremendousblessing there.
That was really so many rays oflight and sunshine and what was
otherwise darkness andconfusion and sadness and the
(11:19):
loss.
One other quick thing, and thatis that it was a great
opportunity to minister to thecommunity too.
So a lot of people were goingaround and ministering to
neighbors, reaching out to otherneighborhoods.
Our presbytery ended up callinga man to serve as an evangelist
to areas considering the broadimpact of Hurricane Harvey, and
(11:42):
so he served for two years inthat capacity.
So that was a fantasticopportunity to also share the
gospel of Hurricane Harvey, andso he served for two years in
that capacity.
So that was a fantasticopportunity to also share the
gospel.
Neighbors coming to helpneighbors, people setting up
their barbecue pits and whatnotat the corner cooking up hot
dogs and getting peopleresources to where they needed
(12:02):
to, and so even within theneighborhood.
So those aspects of recovery asthings got into swing and I
mean it was there was justblessing after blessing that we
received, but then also we hadthe great opportunity of being
able to to be a blessing toother people.
We're very thankful for that.
David Nakhla (12:22):
I remember those early days there.
First time I met you, Carl.
I actually remember when Iworshiped with you guys that
week.
You were serving as an elderthere at Cornerstone and I think
you gave the congregationalprayer and your testimony to
God's sovereignty and care andyour reliance on that was very
meaningful to me.
Ron, yours is a littledifferent story.
(12:46):
Yeah, Would you mind sharingwith us what?
Ron Elwell (12:50):
the Elwells went through.
Yeah, in some ways I'm likedisaster relief and you know,
knowing the different places,you know, like what happened in
the Houston area and there wereguys from our church that went
down and helped, you know, forsome time.
You know, a couple of ourdeacons went down and helped out
for a few weeks, I guess, andcame back with some wonderful
(13:14):
stories about traveling throughtraffic in Houston and
everything.
And then, although we heardabout Neon Kentucky, our
situation's not, you know, inthe midst of a sort of a
regional disaster or even aneighborhood disaster.
It was just our individual home.
It was a Wednesday night.
We were at church.
We lingered and then headedhome and we're pulling in the
(13:50):
driveway and my daughterexclaims dad, it's foggy.
Well, there had been no foganywhere else and I'm looking at
the color and it was like gee,that's not fog.
And we pull in and there'ssmoke everywhere, run to the
front door, open the door andsmoke to the ground.
We had dogs in a back room so Iimmediately ran around and
(14:13):
we'll open that door.
And they came out.
We were happy to see that,noticed that there was a little
fire stuff, did not reallynotice anything going on.
But when I finally stepped backand realized that the shingles
on the roof of our house weremelting, oh my God, and within a
(14:35):
couple of short minutes theroof dropped in and there was a
column of fire that probablywent up a couple of stories.
Our house was pretty fullyinvolved.
Now, basically the whole secondfloor burned out and and then
burned through and just droppeda lot of stuff into the ground
(14:57):
floor.
Uh, it was a four alarm fire.
There were four different firecompanies responded.
You know we're in a bit of arural area, so I've got a
driveway that's about 200 feetto get back in.
The firemen respondedwonderfully.
They kept running in the houseand carrying stuff out and it
(15:19):
was like, well, we can't savethe house, we're going to save
keepsakes.
So they were taking picturesoff the wall and found, like our
wedding album and stuff likethat, which you know I mean we
lost a lot of things, but justthe fact that someone even
thought of doing that.
And then they they kind of wentto town on top of that.
(15:39):
So you know the the roof wastotally burned out and then the
next day it rained.
So you know, the roof wastotally burned out and then the
next day it rained.
So between them pouring a lotof water on the building, or
what remained of the building,and most of the downstairs was
still there, a lot of theupstairs fell into, you know,
the first floor and then therewas probably over two feet of
(16:03):
just really ugly, lousy water inthe basement.
So we didn't quite burn to theground, but the end result was
they had to tear the house downto the foundation.
So we literally lost everythingwithin the house.
It was very little that we wereable to salvage.
First of all, we're verythankful for the response to the
(16:25):
fire department.
Those guys are wonderful, youknow.
When they came aroundcanvassing for money, they'd oh
yeah, we remember that fire.
The response of the church wasalso pretty amazing.
So you know, we discovered thefire probably about 8.30, and by
11, 10 or 11 o'clock over adozen people from the church had
(16:48):
gathered.
Our associate pastor at thetime is now our pastor at New
Hope and just several otherpeople arrived and just kind of
stood around.
You're kind of in shock, youdon't really know.
It's not even a matter of likecrying or it's just like what
just happened.
(17:08):
And I mean, the good news isthe believer.
It's like this is all in god'stiming.
This is all.
In my view right now.
This is pretty bad.
This is pretty horrible.
Is the insurance going to coverthis stuff?
You know how do you do this?
What do you do?
There's a picture somewhere ofa standing in a circle and
praying and then talking.
(17:28):
It's like midnight now.
Fortunately, my brother-in-lawand my in-laws live pretty close
by, so we were able to go andstay at our in-laws and then
started in that interact withinsurance companies and and some
of that stuff, providentially,was just crazy.
So I feel very fortunate.
(17:50):
Our insurance company wasreally good.
We got some good advice from.
So you know, dave haney is amember of our church.
Dave's quick thinking and wellwas quick thinking and well
experienced and knew what to doand Dave took on the job of.
You know, anytime there's afire, that makes the news and we
did have a news helicopter fromthe Philadelphia TV station
(18:14):
overhead.
I never noticed it, never sawit.
So he knew that there weregoing to be an independence
assurance adjuster showing up indroves, which they did, and he
stood at the end of the drivewayand just collected business
cards from people and said, justokay, which was a big help.
It's interesting.
I've had a chance to talk toother people that have run into
(18:35):
some difficulty and they justdidn't know how to handle that.
Well, my advice is they providean important service, but you
probably should find out whatthe insurance you've paid for
what they're going to do for you.
And as for us, personally I hadno complaints with what they
did for us to enables to teardown the house, get credit for
(18:57):
all the stuff on the inside ofthe house that we had lost, and
then be able to rebuild where wewere located.
It is a long process, and evento find us a place to live for
that year that we were out ofthe house.
So it did take a full year forus to go through the process to
clean up, rebuild the house.
So you're talking architect,builder, all those things.
(19:20):
That can be a real challenge.
Our kids attended a Christianschool.
The outpouring of help withinthe Christian community was just
amazing, so it was from our ownchurch, from church friends
that we had, from families inthe Christian school, and I know
there were a lot of peopleworking behind the scenes.
I don't know who organized it,but a number of people, once
(19:41):
sort of the dust had cleared,helped us pump the water out of
the house and then just to startto go through is there anything
salvageable?
And then parts of the area ofthe house that didn't burn, but
just things got wet.
People came in and collectedlike clothes and dishes and
(20:04):
stuff and took it away andcleaned it.
One of our elders in the churchhad a barn and he offered some
of the stuff that we thought.
Well, we're going to try andhang on to this and see.
You know, at the end of the day, is this also going to dump,
stir or is this something we'regoing?
to try and bring back becausewe'd like to keep some of it, so
we had a place to store stuffthat we didn't really have to
(20:25):
pay for.
So I mean, my experience was,you know, not a situation where,
okay, a whole neighborhood'sdecimated and you have to really
, so everybody in your communityin that circumstance is in the
same boat and nobody can reallyhelp each other.
Ours was different, becauseeveryone around us was able to
(20:46):
come in and really provide helpfor us.
One of the most amazing thingswas I got a call from the
insurance company.
This woman calls and she's likemy job is to arrange housing for
you, and do you want us to puta trailer on your property or do
you want us to find a rental?
And I was like, well, if youput a trail on the property, you
won't be able no one will beable to access the property to
(21:09):
either tear it down or rebuildit, so that's not going to work.
She gives me an address of ahome that was a rental in our
area that fit our needs, and I'msitting in my in-law's house.
I said, ma'am, the house youjust gave me is the house next
door to the house I'm sitting in.
Wow, which was just like howdoes that happen?
(21:29):
How does that happen?
So it left us in a neighborhoodthat we could check up on
things.
You know not being too fun, it'sjust you see how the Lord can
kind of work through things andit's really kind of devastating
and but it's also you know theLord's in control and you talk
to people that are unbelieversand they like weren't you upset?
(21:51):
And I was like, well, no, I wasin shock.
But yeah, you know the Lordwill provide and it does give us
a wonderful opportunity towitness to the peace that we can
have, because it's not ourproblem, the Lord's problem and
the Lord's people do pulltogether.
So I mean I have anappreciation for people that are
in those really direcircumstances, like in Houston,
(22:14):
like in Neon, like what's goingon in Western Carolina now.
David Nakhla (22:18):
You mentioned what David Hayne was doing with all
these adjusters showing up.
Can you explain that a littlebit more to somebody who's never
been through that?
All these adjusters showing up?
Can you explain that a littlebit more to somebody who's never
been through that?
Why are they showing up?
Ron Elwell (22:30):
So independent insurance adjusters.
Their job is to represent youto the insurance company, so
they can be very helpful.
The issue that you have, though, is when you contract with
someone, they're going towhatever.
Whatever money's earned,they're going to take a
percentage of it, and that's, insome ways, that's negotiable,
(22:54):
but the minute you do that, it'slike you're having a
disagreement with someone, andthe first thing you do is hire a
lawyer, right?
So that sets up a scenariowhere it's an adversarial
relationship with your insurancecompany.
Now, I talked to people thathave used them and found that
(23:16):
they needed to use them, becausethey felt they were having a
hard time getting from theinsurance company that they had
been insured through the helpand services and everything that
were promised Didn't feel theywere delivered, but my advice
would be see what your owninsurance company is going to do
for you, and maybe even asksomeone, a third party.
(23:38):
Does this look like a good deal?
Are they trying to squeeze you?
Are they being honest andforthright with you?
We were very happy with thecompany that we worked for, and
they ended up reimbursing us forthings that we really didn't
view as very valuable.
David Nakhla (23:57):
Yeah, that's good.
Ron Elwell (23:58):
Very helpful, Ron and Dave knew that, yeah, so
have somebody knowledgeableabout financial things and
insurance things and you know,and Dave had all of that
financial skill set was, uh wasof great value.
David Nakhla (24:11):
Yeah, good, thank you, ron.
That's great.
Mike, do you have a story toshare with us?
Mike Cloy (24:16):
Been around a lot of disasters personally tornadoes,
17 moves in my own house andabout probably 12 under my dad's
house and we've lived intornadoes and hurricanes and
earthquakes and everything.
And I got to do a little bit ofthat as a disaster response
coordinator in the Army and seena lot of destruction, was the
(24:37):
defense coordinating officer forthe state of South Carolina and
North Carolina.
I know how the Department ofDefense comes along, the
governors and stuff and localcommunities which we recently
experienced here in WesternNorth Carolina where I live.
We had active duty and theNational Guard mobilized in
force mainly active duty withtheir aviation, rotary wing
(24:59):
aviation assets to get up inthese mountains and these nooks
and hollers.
As Seth would tell us, it's beena sad story.
Carl's talking about the waterleaving its banks and you never
thought it would ever come and athousand year flood and that's
the same thing here.
Right, these folks haven'texperienced anything like this
in a hundred years.
(25:20):
People were over a hundredyears last time.
Things flooded as badly as theydid and that was where it came
related.
The thing that resonated withthe gentleman in your story was
how people came alongside you.
To me You're stunned, you'rekind of like whoa.
It's overwhelming.
Where do I begin?
How do I even think throughthis?
(25:40):
And you had folks comealongside you who loved you yeah
, strangers, you know, and thosethat deeply love you in the
church and what that does is itcalms your soul.
It's the way the Lord calmsyour soul, in a way that's hard
to understand.
They put their arm around youand say they're going to be
(26:00):
there with you.
I mean the Good Samaritan right.
You see, the love of a stranger, someone that probably wouldn't
have been accepted by theperson he was rendering aid to.
So important to know thatsomeone's going to be there with
you.
That seemed to be a changingmoment, a salient point in time,
and that's what I thinkdisaster response is about.
David Nakhla (26:22):
I do oftentimes think about when a church
experience a disaster in itsmidst of flooding and that type
of thing of that kind of scale.
Yeah, it's oftentimes the firsttime that they've been through
that and that's oftentimes whenI go into the situations I
assume that they haven't beenthrough that before.
(26:43):
And that's where I was thinkingabout.
Yeah, carl and Ron, I mean thatmeans your local deacons
haven't probably ministered tothat particular situation and
they're not necessarily equippedwith all the answers and all
the strategies and processes.
And yet, even as Mike wassaying, the fact that their
(27:04):
presence, you know they'reshowing up, they're doing what
they can do, knowing thatthey've got your back, that
they're going to be there withyou through that is a big part
of that.
So, as you hone in maybe on itcould be the deacons, but the
diaconal it's.
You know, not necessarilydeacons, but the diaconal it's.
You know, not necessarilydeacons, but the diaconal
ministry you received.
Are there particular things asyou think through the process of
(27:27):
recovery?
Are there particular thingsthat you found were particularly
impactful as the church camealongside you?
Carl Miller (27:37):
brothers and sisters, yeah, I would say that
several things come to mind, oneof which is kind of the scaled
and was caused and the ministryopportunities that were then
presented.
It was, I think, a learningopportunity for a lot of the
(28:06):
disaster relief coordination andall of that type of thing, and
so some of the most impactfulthings were, though, the quick
response, right.
I mean, when you're dealingwith a flood, you're also
dealing with water receding, notin a uniform fashion, and so
the ability for men to get thereand help to arrive sometimes
(28:29):
has some delays, just becauseroads are blocked, trees are
down, whatever, and but you know, quick response and also an
informed response, right.
So somebody knowing not only,like you said, mike earlier,
that, yes, it's wonderful toknow that people had our backs
(28:51):
and we felt the love of thebrotherhood brothers and sisters
came and, you know, shared thelove of Christ with us and with
others who were affected, butfor those to come, who know what
to do right at the beginning,with the checklist, with knowing
(29:12):
inventory, we never thought ofoh yeah, you need to take an
inventory of things and thenalso being able to rally
resources right.
When you're hit with a flood,everybody, all the local
resources, are sapped up andtapped very quickly.
Everybody's tapping out all themajor home improvement stores,
(29:37):
you know, and so it's all gonevery quickly.
And so one of the blessings thatI think was very impactful for
us is that the men that showedup, especially initially, also
had resources from other placesin the United States and they
were able to make phone callsand they were able to tap into
(29:58):
people who could send usresources and bring it in from
afar.
And then we weren't waiting forthe backfill of resources
locally through retail providersor otherwise, right, so that
was helpful.
Also, the disaster reliefs team, their provision and
(30:19):
acquisition of dehumidifiers andsome important things that we
really needed right away to getthe water out of the air, you
know, as well as deal with themess that we were sorting
through.
And then, thirdly, just the Iwould say, the organization of
teams, and so, whether that belocally through our church, our
(30:41):
diaconate did a good job oforganizing members of our church
to come and to you know, takeshifts and work on the house and
do other things like that.
But also the teams and thecoordination through the OPC,
disaster relief are getting thetools and the things to you know
, help put not only thematerials and supplies but the
(31:03):
tools to use on those materialsand supplies to make things
happen.
That was helpful.
And then just coordinating teamsand funds to come in.
You know, as time progressed,so realizing that, yeah, it's
not just going to happen in twoweeks, three weeks, this is
(31:23):
going to be months of work, butcoordinated and there was a flow
, an overlap.
So we were never really withouta team in the house doing
something that was needed in thenext step of the process.
So I would say that those weresome of the things that were the
most impactful, you know, maybea fourth being just the love
(31:48):
and care of the body and thebroader body, even outside of
the OPC, and sending in funds sothat other resources could be
acquired and even used forbroader ministry in the
community too.
So those are the things thatcome to mind.
How about for you, ron.
Ron Elwell (32:05):
Well, I think again, our experience was a process
after the fire, kind of cleaningout, and then the process of
rebuilding, and it's after anevent like that and really any
event.
It's a long process and there'sdifferent stages where it's
(32:27):
really helpful to haveknowledgeable people to be able
to advise or direct in eachaspect of that.
So you know, people thatunderstand insurance, people
that understand how to muck out,how to clean up, and then we
had to find somebody to tearwhat remained of our house down,
(32:48):
got some advice about how to dothat.
A good Christian friend of minewho's in the insurance industry
called up and said I know abuilder that focuses on fire
restoration.
Well, our house wasn't quitefire restoration because it was,
(33:08):
but we ended up going with thegentleman because they you know
they had a lot of sympathy forour circumstance.
So just to be able to get therecommendation from people,
whatever their area of expertise, to kind of to set in.
So deacons can't do everything.
Deacons don't know everything,but you know the one thing that
(33:29):
you can, you can do as a deaconis to know where to look for
resources or who is trying tohave a list of where can I go to
answer this question, thisparticular challenge.
I mean, I was a deacon for anumber of years before I became
an elder, so I remember kind ofgoing through that process when
there was an emergency like Idon't know about this, who do I
(33:50):
contact?
And you know we would discusstrying to have resources in mind
just for those very unusualevents.
You know it's nice withdisaster relief.
I know probably got a nice listof people to call on at this
point.
But it's a very, very necessarycomponent of what deacons can
(34:11):
do, because it's not just doingbut it's also sort of advising
and counseling and encouraging.
David Nakhla (34:16):
Yeah.
Ron Elwell (34:17):
And maybe in some cases, recognizing this is
beyond my pay grade.
Let's find somebody that youknow.
To them it's oh yeah, we'vedone this before, we've got this
.
That's right To be able tooffer that on.
(34:40):
Don't have.
But it's been interesting towatch the development of what
we're able to do at this time.
I think it's wonderful.
David Nakhla (34:47):
Two things I would add or reflect on.
What you're saying is thatnobody expects a disaster to
happen to them.
It wasn't part of your plan no,for that week or for that day
or for that year.
But suddenly your day, week,year is totally changed.
This is put on top of you, ontop of your current living, and
so a role that deacons can playis coming alongside and carrying
(35:11):
some of that burden.
I mean, you could Google theresources you know type of thing
, but they may not be the expert, but they can help find some of
those resources.
And the other thing is that alot of times and I just
experienced this just this lastweek as I was visiting the
Hallies down in Florida theHallies are not eager to be home
remodelers.
(35:32):
That was not in their vision.
They're not that type of people.
They have no interest inremodeling.
Getting to pick their ownkitchen cabinets is not exciting
to them.
They like the cabinets theyhave because those were the ones
that were there.
And suddenly somebody who goesthrough a disaster is thrust
into this home remodelerscenario.
Ron Elwell (35:52):
A thousand decisions .
David Nakhla (35:53):
Right that they never chose and would never have
chosen, and are also vulnerableto be really taken advantage of
by the people at the end ofyour driveway, as you were
mentioning.
I think those are things thatdeacons can keep in mind when
somebody goes through this thatthis is not what they chose,
this was not their plan fortheir life this year, this
family, and how do we alleviatesome of that burden from them
(36:17):
and share in some of that?
Mike, do you have anything toadd to that?
Mike Cloy (36:20):
There's a couple of things that trigger some
thinking.
First of all, probably yourinformed response.
Thought is perfect.
The simple thing a deacon cando is know the sheep.
Know them, and I'm not talkingabout what car they drive or
what job he has, what the sheepto be known as is.
(36:42):
Where do they live?
How do you get there?
Do they have elderly in theirhome?
Do they have small children?
Do they have developmentallydelayed?
What is the picture of thatfamily?
Best way to look at it is thatwe all have family members.
We have children, I havegrandchildren and I know them.
I know them.
I know what makes my youngestgrandchild tick and I know their
(37:06):
tendencies.
And I think deacons really needto know that so that they don't
necessarily do the work butthey can marry up others that
are like-minded or similarexperiences or have gone through
some things that these familieshave gone through, and they can
be united.
So they're informed of thesheep because they know the
(37:29):
sheep and therefore they canassist the sheep by coordinating
, directing, sending resources,those type of things.
The other I'll give you anexample it's gifts and graces.
I mean Haney has a gift.
He knew the insurance adjusters, like sharks, were going to
move in and he needed to be inthe middle of it so that you
(37:53):
could focus or I'm wrong on whatyou need to focus on.
So that's his gift.
He's developed it.
He knows it may be firsthandexperience, but there are people
in the church that haveremarkable gifts and graces that
we don't even know about.
Now in Western North Carolinawe're going to build these
(38:14):
Chalmers homes.
The only reason why theseChalmers homes for the most
vulnerable have had their housepushed off its foundation or
totally destroyed because offlood and the velocity of water
is because we have a generalcontractor and an engineer in
our congregation.
That's their gift and so theywant to build chalmers homes
(38:35):
little 16 by 40.
We used to be 12, we're gone 16, now by 40.
And they know how to permit.
One of them is ability to signoff on engineering plans.
A deacon needed to know that.
A deacon can know that and helpthem get things done to serve
people.
(38:55):
So knowing, informed response,and then gifts and graces.
And then you get on the groundand you're continuing to know
about what happened and then yousend that information out.
As you said, all of a sudden,resources that were not
available locally are coming.
(39:16):
Why?
Because somebody said we needhelp, we need these resources
not available here.
And then they come.
That's what the D dart does inthe presbytery of the southeast
disaster events response team.
They give us a picture ofreality, then we can forward it
to the presbytery and even todavid, and david can come and
look as well.
And we've got all theseeyeballs trying to look at the
(39:40):
totality of this thing and makean informed response.
Good stuff, yeah, it's, itsomewhat naturally happens.
But what we want to do is makeit tighter.
Right, make it tighter andyou're talking, mike.
David Nakhla (39:55):
It sounds like even in the preparedness realm,
right, you're saying thedeaconsons know the gifts and
graces of your congregation forthat time when those things will
be needed.
When somebody's house burnsdown.
Someone's house is flooded.
Mike Cloy (40:11):
Right Now, ron made a key statement Know your
insurance policy.
Well.
When do we crack the bad boyopens?
When we have a disaster?
Oh, okay, this is what it'sgoing to cover Reading your
insurance policy before they,before you need it, you need it.
Right, it's the same thing inthe church.
David Nakhla (40:28):
Yeah.
Mike Cloy (40:29):
You get to know what.
If something happens here, howare we going to react?
Carl Miller (40:33):
Yeah, I think it's also helpful to consider the
whole FEMA situation too, right.
Especially, like in oursituation, we had to figure that
out really fast, okay, so whatis FEMA going to do and not
going to do, and you know, andall of that, and how does that
play into the insurancediscussion or into the relief
(40:57):
discussion?
You know in terms of who'sdoing what and who's covering
what, and so that's also animportant piece, I would add.
Mike Cloy (41:06):
I'll give you an example of that.
So David shows up with Seth andTroutman and some others and
Seth is educating this engineerand general contractor of our
church that's going to do somedisaster response on how FEMA
works and it was like lightbulbs going off.
Well, now we're living it.
So we're learning every daywhat FEMA will and will not do
(41:28):
and how it works.
That's information that peopleneed for a reform response.
It's a David Haney, it's aHaney anticipation moment, right
.
So when we know that there'sanother flood, out there in the
Rolodex is a bunch of people inMcDowell County or Neon who've
got experience with FEMA.
Well, they need to be tappedinto so that we can learn
(41:53):
lessons from those that havegone before us.
David Nakhla (41:55):
So oftentimes in disasters, we also find lots of
well-intentioned efforts thatare sometimes not so helpful,
and the biggest example I canthink of is with disaster
response.
They talk about the disasterafter the disaster, which is the
piles and piles and piles ofclothes Well-meaning,
(42:16):
well-intentioned, you know,clothes just sent.
Well-intentioned, you know,clothes just sent.
And I think I interacted withsomebody from Salvation Army and
they said that of the donationsthey receive, I think it's only
about 20% are really useful forbeing sold in their shops or
used, and I think we experiencedthat.
So that's just an example ofthe well-intentioned response to
(42:38):
disaster response.
That's always not so helpful,but maybe you guys can interact
a little bit more personally.
Maybe you can just give someguidance to deacons Like what
are some things that maybe theycould avoid doing that, whether
it occurred to you or maybe yousaw it with someone else, that
was not being the most helpfulthing.
Mike Cloy (42:57):
Let me give a mosaic of a disaster when it comes to
material, and this is that youcan read.
When helping hurts, they'llplay it out nicely in that book,
but our hearts hurt.
We see something happens.
We want to help, so we pushstuff to people thinking that
you know, they're wet, they needtowels, okay, or they're cold,
they need a jacket, and it'swell-intentioned.
(43:19):
And they want to do somethingfast to alleviate because their
heart hurts for the people thatare suffering.
Okay, that's, that's natural.
Natural it, but it's gotta becontrolled.
And that's where the informedresponse comes in and goes this
is what we need.
And you pull that stuff into thedisaster.
(43:40):
You don't push it, because whenyou push it, it's got to have a
place to be.
You know it may not be what youwant, and now it's eating up
space.
And then you talk aboutpilfering black market.
You talk it's a mess.
So I'll give you an example.
We got people building shedsfor people in the mountains
because it is now cold, and wegot snow on the ground and we
got county officials evictingthem from the very shed that
(44:03):
somebody with a good heart builtso that they can stay out of
the weather, but it has noventilation in it.
Next thing, you know, they gota heater in there and people are
gonna die, right, because theyhave no means to breathe.
When they're sleeping at night,they're taking in these fumes,
are gonna to wake up dead, right, right.
So that is unwise.
That's a perfect example.
(44:24):
We're putting people at riskbecause we're our hearts hurt.
We don't want them to be cold.
Carl Miller (44:28):
You know we're going to actually hurt them,
maybe harm them I think somethings for us that could be
helpful and I don't know if itreally falls within the deacons
specific, because the deaconsare local, know the area, et
cetera but maybe more broadly tothe disaster relief ministry is
(44:48):
that sometimes you do havepeople who are coming in and
have certain either gifts, orthey're given certain tasks when
they arrive to cover, and sothey think, well, this will be
sufficient for the need or takecare of the need.
But there may be local orregional, even environmental
(45:11):
things that the residents knowbut that people outside the area
don't.
So, for example, one of thethings for us was that there was
a wonderful intention to youknow, because of how everything
happened, there had to be somere-leveling and re-sloping of
our yards to help with drainageand because water was coming to
(45:35):
the house, and so they wereworking with that, and then,
after the skid steer andeverything got through, it's
time to try to put some grassback into place.
That wasn't just dirt Right,and so they were looking at the
seed, throwing seed on theground.
Well, in Houston that doesn'twork.
Well, it's going to just bepatchy.
You really have to lay sodRight, and so that was one of
(46:00):
the things that I would say wasgood intention, but it it just.
It needed to be sodded insteadof seeded, and so you know.
So some I guess that would fallunder the category of just some
of the decisions.
It would be good to not assumewhat would be good to get what
you want back in there, but alsoconsult the local residents to
(46:23):
make sure that you understandwhat works and what doesn't work
with the environment or withthe ground or other things like
that.
David Nakhla (46:32):
So oh, that's a great example.
You can even push that into thelocal church, Like there's a
difference between one familyand the next right.
What may work great in my homemay not work great in the Miller
home.
So let's really find out what'sgoing to be best for the
Millers.
Let's not assume that we knowwhat's best or even impose, do
more asking of questions thandirecting.
Ron Elwell (46:55):
What I think you need versus what you think you
need Right right, right, right,versus what you think you need.
David Nakhla (47:01):
Right, right, right, right.
Yeah, I also think.
Actually, carl, I think in yourhome we had some demo crews, if
I remember right, demo crews goa little bit hog wild and
actually began to just I don'tremember the details, we don't
get into the details but maybedismantle a little bit beyond
what you know was needed to bedismantled and actually were
creating more damage and, again,well-intentioned, but moving
(47:22):
faster than they knew what wasright.
So sure, mike, do you want totalk a little bit more, as we
even move towards a close, aboutencouraging proactive
preparations that deacons can do?
Mike Cloy (47:37):
And to me that's the prep phase.
The preparations before thestorm are most critical and I've
done some videos on set thatare hung on the opc disaster
response web page it's, I think,opc disaster responseorg.
You can find all that there's.
A bunch of other folks havedone similar stuff that's been
captured.
(47:58):
Tricious made sure it'savailable to everybody and, but
yeah, it to me.
It's always problematic whenpeople think when a storm hits,
your point of reference is goingto be familiar to you.
In other words, the street thatI turn on is going to be there
(48:18):
to get to their house.
Well, and maybe underwater,like car, like.
Carl said getting there.
But what's the workaround?
Maybe who has a boat, right?
Well, now you're trying to finda boat or ski to wherever those
things were, Carl, they'rerunning up and down the street
like it's a river or a lake, butit's always important, I think,
(48:38):
for the deacons to find helpers.
Helpers, and ron said it,deacons can't do everything, but
there's got to be a army ofhelpers.
That army, I didn't say navy ormarine corps of helpers, this is
a army of helpers who areattuned to the deacon as to
(49:01):
what's important, and they goout and survey and get to know
with the deacon, the families ofthe church, yeah, and nothing
else.
There's this communication.
Who's in the house and this hasgot to be updated.
So I mean, this is not one timething, right?
Yeah, like once a year, yourenew your insurance, your car
insurance, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.
(49:22):
I think that's the key andthere's a whole list of things
you can do on the webpage.
David Nakhla (49:29):
That'll help you.
That's good, Brothers.
Is there more that you,anything else that we didn't
cover that you'd like to includein this conversation before we
bring this plane in for alanding?
Mike Cloy (49:44):
Let me give you a lesson learned that I have not
experienced.
I think maybe Mike Kelly andNeon, as a site coordinator,
experienced it.
I mean, he could run for mayorof Neon right now if he wanted
to.
But Mike was successful becausehe invited and kept the
community, the local leaders andvarious committees informed
(50:08):
what was going on.
So we created trust andpartnerships and here in the
Western North Carolina, mcdowellCounty, we have an emergency
management center.
That's done a ton of work.
And then we got this guy namedJerry Lewis.
He's a pastor.
He's not who you think he isfrom days past.
He's not that funny.
No, he's got one of this GraceCommunity Church.
David Nakhla (50:26):
It's a pastor, he's not who you think he is,
from days past.
Mike Cloy (50:27):
He's not that funny.
No, he's got one of these gracecommunity churches big church.
They love God and they areinvolved in the community.
And he was sensing that there'sall these other churches that
are out there.
Like us, an OPC church wantedto do something.
He got us all to the table.
It was remarkable.
Everybody wanted to do Baptiston Mission, a bunch of others.
(50:50):
We're in a room together andthen all of a sudden they
produce a list of 300 homes.
They're either red tag oryellow tag.
Red tag destroyed Can't go backin.
Yellow tag you can go back inonce they get repaired.
That's an informed response.
Right Now we are all going.
I got all these over here andwe're marrying up
responsibilities.
(51:10):
So one thing I've learned sofar out of the disaster Western
North Carolina is somebody elseknows something.
You can get everybody that knowssomething in a room together.
It's a especially if it'sChristian focused governmental,
governmental agency emergencymanagement.
We actually have the countyplanner in the room with us In
(51:37):
the church, in the church rightand we're all talking about how
can we help these families andwhere are the gaps and where are
the seams, and we do that everyWednesday.
And as a pastor of a very largechurch in the community felt
the need to get people to starttalking to each other, and he
did it.
David Nakhla (51:57):
So wherever you can do that, yeah, yeah, wow,
that's really great, that'sgreat.
Carl Miller (52:06):
Yeah.
David Nakhla (52:07):
Well, brothers, it's really good to be with you.
Thank you for willing to openyour hearts and your minds to
what you experienced and again,I know that probably brings back
lots of difficult memories, buthopefully even encouraging
memories, as you think about theministry of the church to you
and, ultimately, Christ peoplebeing Christ's hands and feet.
(52:28):
I would encourage everybodywho's hearing this that OPC
Disaster Response is alwayslooking for more volunteers.
You can register as a disasterresponse volunteer on our
website, opcdisasterresponseorg.
There's other resources there.
We seek to stand ready to servewhen needs arise and M&A
(52:49):
Disaster Response.
Our PCA brothers and sisterswere mentioned in this as well
and we've got a greatrelationship with them.
We really love working withthem and we've had so many
people come to us throughReformed Mission Services, our
brothers in the URCNA.
I think they've sent so manyvolunteers to us, especially to.
(53:10):
Carl.
Miller knows lots of thosepeople because they came and
worked in his house.
Maybe even more of them servedin your home than OPC people
which is a great fraternalblessing for us to serve
together.
You can keep updated on ourefforts on Disaster Response
website and our Facebook page.
(53:30):
Mike, did you want to sayanything more about what's going
on in Southeast North Carolina?
Mike Cloy (53:35):
Yeah, things are coming to a starting point with
these Chalmers songs.
Again, we are serving the mostvulnerable that have no home and
they have very little funds nofamily in most cases that can
come alongside them.
Really tight emphasis on wordand mercy.
So we're ministering mercy butwe're trying really hard to
(54:00):
reach people with the word tothe point that once their home's
built they're going to have apicture of the church that
helped them land as OrthodoxPresbyterian Church and, to be
reminded, they'll have hostfamilies assigned to them so
that they can pray for them.
Get them to church.
Wherever church they go to,we'll get them to it.
If they're not church, we'llgive them a church to go to them
(54:23):
regularly.
As there's 16 by 40 homes beingbuilt by the organization of
our general contractor, our sitecoordinator, our hospitality
coordinator and our volunteercoordinator with people
throughout the country.
We've already had folks fromJoe Where's Joe from?
I can't remember.
Is it Indiana, illinois, andthen even down in Georgia.
(54:44):
A bunch of other generalcontractors have called us up
and said give me a house, I'llbuild it.
I mean, we got two calls todayGive me a house, I'll build it.
So we're excited.
We think at the beginning,somewhere about mid-January
we'll start putting our firsthouse up.
We've finally got all thepermittings done and some of the
material ready to go.
(55:05):
It's taken a little while to gothrough the process, but, yep,
we're really excited about it.
We did learn of one family thatis just terribly impacted and
their story within themselves.
Maybe something I can do foryou, trish, to write up this
particular family.
They almost lost their lives.
Their house was hit by amudslide, took about 24 hours to
(55:25):
get dug out and then put in hishead.
And then, when they got rescuedby air two hours later, another
mudslide totally wiped thehouse off the face of the earth.
So rescued, and now we'recoming alongside them to build
60 year old people no, no family, nothing to help them.
So we're going to help them.
I'll tell you more about themlater, but just keep us in
(55:47):
prayers as we get moving.
Take our first step, january,when the volunteers show and we
start going vertical with lumber.
David Nakhla (55:58):
So exciting to be able to be part of that.
We welcome you to join thoseefforts.
We will also be having aneffort begin in Florida to
rebuild the house of our pastordown there whose house was
flooded, so stay tuned for thoseon our websites and Facebook
pages, Instagram, etc.
I wanted to say my thanks toour producer, Trish Dugan, who
(56:18):
does such a fantastic job inpulling all of this together and
producing these episodes.
Ron, Carl and Mike thank eachof you for joining us today and
we'll see you on the nextepisode of the Reformed Deacon
Podcast.
I hope you enjoyed today'sdiscussion and were able to
garner some insights from thoseexperiences.
(56:39):
Regarding disaster response,before we end this episode, I
wanted to make you aware that wehave a list of resources on our
website, compiled over theyears and based on our
experiences, as well as fromoutside sources we thought are
helpful in disaster preparedness.
You can find the list ofresources by going to
opcdisasterresponse.
org and looking for theresources tab in the menu.
(57:03):
We hope you'll consider it astarting point in disaster
preparation for your church.
Thanks for joining us.
Go to our website,thereformdeacon.
org.
There you will find all ourepisodes, program notes and
other helpful resources, andplease make plans to join us
again next month for anotherepisode of the Reform Deacon
Podcast.
For those to come who know what to do right at the
beginning, with the checklist,with knowing inventory we never
thought of oh yeah, you need totake an inventory of things and
then also being able to rallyresources.
David Nakhla (00:18):
Welcome to the Reformed Deacon, a casual
conversation with topicsspecifically designed to help
local Reformed deacons.
There are nearly a thousanddeacons in the OPC alone, so
let's take this opportunity tolearn from and encourage one
another.
We're so glad you could join us.
Let's jump into our nextepisode.
Hi, my name is David Nakhla.
(00:39):
I serve the OPC as theAdministrator for the Committee
on Diaconal Ministries and inthat capacity I've also been
serving as the disaster responsecoordinator for the OPC for the
last decade and a half.
This role is particularlyrelevant in today's episode
because we plan to talk aboutpractical ways deacons can be
helpful in responding todisaster situations that have
(01:00):
affected your church.
Local deacons.
As you listen to this episode,I want you to know that, as part
of a connected church, you donot have to be on your own as
you go through these deep waters.
There are ways you can getadditional help from your
Presbyterian, the denomination,and we'll add a link to a
helpful graphic which explainsthe five steps in response to a
(01:21):
disaster.
You can find that in our shownotes.
So, to help us as we think aboutthis topic, we thought we'd
talk today to three people whohave had firsthand suffering and
involvement with disasters.
Carl Miller is now the pastorat Heritage OPC, new Braunfels,
texas.
Carl's home was flooded withseveral feet of water after
(01:42):
Hurricane Harvey dumped as muchas 50 inches of rain on Houston
in 2017.
Ron Elwell is an elder at NewHope OPC in Bridgeton, new
Jersey.
He and his family suffered thecomplete loss of their home and
its contents in 2006.
We do thank the Lord that noone was hurt, but they did lose
everything.
We'll be hearing from Ron in afew minutes and Mike Cloy, an
(02:04):
elder at Landis OPC in Marion,north Carolina, and a member of
the Presbytery of the SoutheastDiaconal Committee.
Mike played a critical role inthe restoration of Neon Reformed
OPC when it was flooded withsix feet of water following
intense rains in easternKentucky.
He has years of disasterresponse experience in the
military and the OPC, oftenrelies on Mike and is very
(02:27):
thankful for his expertise.
So we're thankful, brothers, foryour willingness to share from
your personal experience to helpus to better prepare for such
crises and to perhaps gain somepractical tips.
I'm sure you'd agree thathaving a church family to lean
on in the aftermath of adisaster is not only helpful but
a comfort, reminding you thatyou're not alone.
(02:48):
So thank you for joining us.
To start off with things I'dlike to hear from each of you
about your experience.
Maybe take a few minutes toshare your story.
What happened, your initialresponses physically,
emotionally if you'recomfortable with that and
through that disaster that youfaced, faced, and how long did
it take till your life was quoteunquote back to normal?
(03:09):
Yeah, we can start with you,carl, if you're willing.
Carl Miller (03:12):
Sure, yeah, so my family was affected by Hurricane
Harvey in 2017.
And 17.
And many know that HurricaneHarvey was they call it kind of
a one in a thousand year storm,as often what it's referred to.
(03:34):
As you know, houston andHoustonians are very familiar
with hurricanes, so it's notreally that we don't know how to
handle them, but Harveydefinitely had some very unique
behavior that caused a lot moredamage than others, and so we
were watching Harvey and all ofthe predicted paths and all of
(03:55):
that as it approached, and alarge part of the problem was
just the speed of which thatstorm came, and it was very slow
and also it kind of hookedaround and then came back for a
second pass.
And so for us, the challengeand the hardship was not really
(04:16):
the rain, although there was alot of rain and that definitely
devastated parts of Houston.
Houston's kind of known to bethe concrete jungle, and so
there's not a lot of, you know,grass and ground and land to
absorb water.
You know much these days asmore construction goes on, so a
(04:38):
lot of places northeast Houstonflooded tremendously very
quickly, some areas in the southalso, but where we were in the
northwest, our impact was not somuch rain in our neighborhood,
but it was the after effects ofthat.
So all the rain that came fromup north and hit up north then
(04:59):
came downstream through creeksand whatnot and it just
overwhelmed those creeks.
And so our home was six blocksaway from the creek that we
backed up to, but it blew, thebanks, pushed in, it hit our
house and soaked it about threefeet up the walls and we have a
(05:22):
two-story home.
We weren't thinking it wasgoing to get that high, but it
did, and it pushed six blocksbeyond our house too.
So it was a lot of water and asit hit and came in right before
the really devastating partsand where it was really flooding
in came in, the Nashville Guardcame through the neighborhood
(05:45):
and said you know you need toleave, it's going to get worse,
you know it's time to go.
We're thankful that my sisterand her family live about five
minutes down the road in adifferent neighborhood, but they
had high ground and so thewater didn't affect them, so we
were safe there, but we did haveto evacuate the home.
It was an odd thing to seepeople literally boating around
(06:09):
the streets of our neighborhoodon jet skis and other just flat
bottom boats trying to get out,get stuff out.
We did make it back into theneighborhood.
After a few days of the waterbeing there, they released a dam
down south of us which thenallowed our area for the water
(06:31):
to kind of go downstream and getout of our area.
So we got into the house and itwas really hard.
We anticipated what it wasgoing to be like just in our own
thoughts, but actually seeingit was quite different.
And you know, for me personallyit was one of those things
where it's, you know, reallyputting your faith into action,
(06:54):
to where your faith hits theroad and you really need to
practice, even in your thoughts,what you preach and how you
encourage others.
On the one hand, I was trying tobe strong for my family.
On the other hand, I was like Ihad a lot of questions.
You know, lord, why this ishuge A lot of loss of our
(07:16):
possessions.
We tried to get a lot upstairs,but you know we were only
successful to be able to do somuch, not the big furniture, and
so we lost a lot of things.
A lot of things were not onlyflooded with water that they sat
in for days, but also then itwas just the air and moisture in
(07:40):
the air, molds, concerns.
You can't salvage books at thatpoint.
I had tons of books in mylibrary, you can't, you know.
There were other things likethat.
So it was a lot of prayer butit was a lot of and a lot of
sorrow, but I was thankful tothe Lord for the resolve that he
gave Stacey and I and the kids,because it was also a time to
(08:02):
be a good witness and atestimony of his grace and to
really trust him in this, and soI did a series of live streams,
like throughout the whole eventand just kind of sharing our
experience day by day anddifferent things that we were
going through and all of that.
(08:22):
When we got in and we were ableto get back to the house that
same day, our deacons werealready deployed and they were
coming to meet us and so one ofour deacons met us there
actually two of them, but beforethat, even by a day or a half a
day.
It was really just such awonderful thing.
(08:44):
There was a man who was retiredmilitary showed up at our door
and he said hey, my name is Rick.
I know you don't know me fromAdam, but my name is Rick and
I'm here to help and I was like,well, thank you, lord, okay.
And so he's like, well, so whatdo we need to do?
And he had some experience, youknow, helping with disaster
(09:08):
relief in the past and but hehad traveled out of state, from
out of state to come down.
He had heard about the, thestorm, and actually he made some
brief contact with David andDavid sent him on and but it was
just a such a blessing becausehe I mean we were trying to get
our thoughts together and figureout what we were trying to do
(09:29):
and what we should do first weweren't entirely sure kind of
fumbling, and he was like, allright, well, let's start getting
stuff out, let's take aninventory.
And I mean he really kind ofhelped organize us even for that
brief time before our diaconatearrived and so anyhow.
So that was just a tremendousblessing.
(09:49):
And then he stayed for weeks tohelp eventually help do some
site coordination with our houseand stuff.
But deacons came, church came, alot of the members of the
church helped muck out the house, the bottom floor, take it down
to the studs, and then Davidand other members of the
disaster relief eventually camein, did assessments, mark Sumter
(10:13):
was there, and so just a greattime of help in the initial
phases.
But then we had over 150, Ithink we counted people from all
over the OTC and other NAPARCdenominations that sent teams
over the next months to come inand help put us back together
(10:34):
again, and a lot of them haddifferent expertises carpenters,
electricians, all sorts ofpeople.
It was great.
It was fantastic.
That was a great blessing tosee the broader church come and
minister to our family andreally helped us get back
together again in a way in whichwe could then sell the house or
(10:57):
have it be available for saleas I was going to be moving on
to other aspects of ministrythat then led to me coming here
to New Braunfels eventually.
So yeah, it was a tremendousblessing there.
That was really so many rays oflight and sunshine and what was
otherwise darkness andconfusion and sadness and the
(11:19):
loss.
One other quick thing, and thatis that it was a great
opportunity to minister to thecommunity too.
So a lot of people were goingaround and ministering to
neighbors, reaching out to otherneighborhoods.
Our presbytery ended up callinga man to serve as an evangelist
to areas considering the broadimpact of Hurricane Harvey, and
(11:42):
so he served for two years inthat capacity.
So that was a fantasticopportunity to also share the
gospel of Hurricane Harvey, andso he served for two years in
that capacity.
So that was a fantasticopportunity to also share the
gospel.
Neighbors coming to helpneighbors, people setting up
their barbecue pits and whatnotat the corner cooking up hot
dogs and getting peopleresources to where they needed
(12:02):
to, and so even within theneighborhood.
So those aspects of recovery asthings got into swing and I
mean it was there was justblessing after blessing that we
received, but then also we hadthe great opportunity of being
able to to be a blessing toother people.
We're very thankful for that.
David Nakhla (12:22):
I remember those early days there.
First time I met you, Carl.
I actually remember when Iworshiped with you guys that
week.
You were serving as an elderthere at Cornerstone and I think
you gave the congregationalprayer and your testimony to
God's sovereignty and care andyour reliance on that was very
meaningful to me.
Ron, yours is a littledifferent story.
(12:46):
Yeah, Would you mind sharingwith us what?
Ron Elwell (12:50):
the Elwells went through.
Yeah, in some ways I'm likedisaster relief and you know,
knowing the different places,you know, like what happened in
the Houston area and there wereguys from our church that went
down and helped, you know, forsome time.
You know, a couple of ourdeacons went down and helped out
for a few weeks, I guess, andcame back with some wonderful
(13:14):
stories about traveling throughtraffic in Houston and
everything.
And then, although we heardabout Neon Kentucky, our
situation's not, you know, inthe midst of a sort of a
regional disaster or even aneighborhood disaster.
It was just our individual home.
It was a Wednesday night.
We were at church.
We lingered and then headedhome and we're pulling in the
(13:50):
driveway and my daughterexclaims dad, it's foggy.
Well, there had been no foganywhere else and I'm looking at
the color and it was like gee,that's not fog.
And we pull in and there'ssmoke everywhere, run to the
front door, open the door andsmoke to the ground.
We had dogs in a back room so Iimmediately ran around and
(14:13):
we'll open that door.
And they came out.
We were happy to see that,noticed that there was a little
fire stuff, did not reallynotice anything going on.
But when I finally stepped backand realized that the shingles
on the roof of our house weremelting, oh my God, and within a
(14:35):
couple of short minutes theroof dropped in and there was a
column of fire that probablywent up a couple of stories.
Our house was pretty fullyinvolved.
Now, basically the whole secondfloor burned out and and then
burned through and just droppeda lot of stuff into the ground
(14:57):
floor.
Uh, it was a four alarm fire.
There were four different firecompanies responded.
You know we're in a bit of arural area, so I've got a
driveway that's about 200 feetto get back in.
The firemen respondedwonderfully.
They kept running in the houseand carrying stuff out and it
(15:19):
was like, well, we can't savethe house, we're going to save
keepsakes.
So they were taking picturesoff the wall and found, like our
wedding album and stuff likethat, which you know I mean we
lost a lot of things, but justthe fact that someone even
thought of doing that.
And then they they kind of wentto town on top of that.
(15:39):
So you know the the roof wastotally burned out and then the
next day it rained.
So you know, the roof wastotally burned out and then the
next day it rained.
So between them pouring a lotof water on the building, or
what remained of the building,and most of the downstairs was
still there, a lot of theupstairs fell into, you know,
the first floor and then therewas probably over two feet of
(16:03):
just really ugly, lousy water inthe basement.
So we didn't quite burn to theground, but the end result was
they had to tear the house downto the foundation.
So we literally lost everythingwithin the house.
It was very little that we wereable to salvage.
First of all, we're verythankful for the response to the
(16:25):
fire department.
Those guys are wonderful, youknow.
When they came aroundcanvassing for money, they'd oh
yeah, we remember that fire.
The response of the church wasalso pretty amazing.
So you know, we discovered thefire probably about 8.30, and by
11, 10 or 11 o'clock over adozen people from the church had
(16:48):
gathered.
Our associate pastor at thetime is now our pastor at New
Hope and just several otherpeople arrived and just kind of
stood around.
You're kind of in shock, youdon't really know.
It's not even a matter of likecrying or it's just like what
just happened.
(17:08):
And I mean, the good news isthe believer.
It's like this is all in god'stiming.
This is all.
In my view right now.
This is pretty bad.
This is pretty horrible.
Is the insurance going to coverthis stuff?
You know how do you do this?
What do you do?
There's a picture somewhere ofa standing in a circle and
praying and then talking.
(17:28):
It's like midnight now.
Fortunately, my brother-in-lawand my in-laws live pretty close
by, so we were able to go andstay at our in-laws and then
started in that interact withinsurance companies and and some
of that stuff, providentially,was just crazy.
So I feel very fortunate.
(17:50):
Our insurance company wasreally good.
We got some good advice from.
So you know, dave haney is amember of our church.
Dave's quick thinking and wellwas quick thinking and well
experienced and knew what to doand Dave took on the job of.
You know, anytime there's afire, that makes the news and we
did have a news helicopter fromthe Philadelphia TV station
(18:14):
overhead.
I never noticed it, never sawit.
So he knew that there weregoing to be an independence
assurance adjuster showing up indroves, which they did, and he
stood at the end of the drivewayand just collected business
cards from people and said, justokay, which was a big help.
It's interesting.
I've had a chance to talk toother people that have run into
(18:35):
some difficulty and they justdidn't know how to handle that.
Well, my advice is they providean important service, but you
probably should find out whatthe insurance you've paid for
what they're going to do for you.
And as for us, personally I hadno complaints with what they
did for us to enables to teardown the house, get credit for
(18:57):
all the stuff on the inside ofthe house that we had lost, and
then be able to rebuild where wewere located.
It is a long process, and evento find us a place to live for
that year that we were out ofthe house.
So it did take a full year forus to go through the process to
clean up, rebuild the house.
So you're talking architect,builder, all those things.
(19:20):
That can be a real challenge.
Our kids attended a Christianschool.
The outpouring of help withinthe Christian community was just
amazing, so it was from our ownchurch, from church friends
that we had, from families inthe Christian school, and I know
there were a lot of peopleworking behind the scenes.
I don't know who organized it,but a number of people, once
(19:41):
sort of the dust had cleared,helped us pump the water out of
the house and then just to startto go through is there anything
salvageable?
And then parts of the area ofthe house that didn't burn, but
just things got wet.
People came in and collectedlike clothes and dishes and
(20:04):
stuff and took it away andcleaned it.
One of our elders in the churchhad a barn and he offered some
of the stuff that we thought.
Well, we're going to try andhang on to this and see.
You know, at the end of the day, is this also going to dump,
stir or is this something we'regoing?
to try and bring back becausewe'd like to keep some of it, so
we had a place to store stuffthat we didn't really have to
(20:25):
pay for.
So I mean, my experience was,you know, not a situation where,
okay, a whole neighborhood'sdecimated and you have to really
, so everybody in your communityin that circumstance is in the
same boat and nobody can reallyhelp each other.
Ours was different, becauseeveryone around us was able to
(20:46):
come in and really provide helpfor us.
One of the most amazing thingswas I got a call from the
insurance company.
This woman calls and she's likemy job is to arrange housing for
you, and do you want us to puta trailer on your property or do
you want us to find a rental?
And I was like, well, if youput a trail on the property, you
won't be able no one will beable to access the property to
(21:09):
either tear it down or rebuildit, so that's not going to work.
She gives me an address of ahome that was a rental in our
area that fit our needs, and I'msitting in my in-law's house.
I said, ma'am, the house youjust gave me is the house next
door to the house I'm sitting in.
Wow, which was just like howdoes that happen?
(21:29):
How does that happen?
So it left us in a neighborhoodthat we could check up on
things.
You know not being too fun, it'sjust you see how the Lord can
kind of work through things andit's really kind of devastating
and but it's also you know theLord's in control and you talk
to people that are unbelieversand they like weren't you upset?
(21:51):
And I was like, well, no, I wasin shock.
But yeah, you know the Lordwill provide and it does give us
a wonderful opportunity towitness to the peace that we can
have, because it's not ourproblem, the Lord's problem and
the Lord's people do pulltogether.
So I mean I have anappreciation for people that are
in those really direcircumstances, like in Houston,
(22:14):
like in Neon, like what's goingon in Western Carolina now.
David Nakhla (22:18):
You mentioned what David Hayne was doing with all
these adjusters showing up.
Can you explain that a littlebit more to somebody who's never
been through that?
All these adjusters showing up?
Can you explain that a littlebit more to somebody who's never
been through that?
Why are they showing up?
Ron Elwell (22:30):
So independent insurance adjusters.
Their job is to represent youto the insurance company, so
they can be very helpful.
The issue that you have, though, is when you contract with
someone, they're going towhatever.
Whatever money's earned,they're going to take a
percentage of it, and that's, insome ways, that's negotiable,
(22:54):
but the minute you do that, it'slike you're having a
disagreement with someone, andthe first thing you do is hire a
lawyer, right?
So that sets up a scenariowhere it's an adversarial
relationship with your insurancecompany.
Now, I talked to people thathave used them and found that
(23:16):
they needed to use them, becausethey felt they were having a
hard time getting from theinsurance company that they had
been insured through the helpand services and everything that
were promised Didn't feel theywere delivered, but my advice
would be see what your owninsurance company is going to do
for you, and maybe even asksomeone, a third party.
(23:38):
Does this look like a good deal?
Are they trying to squeeze you?
Are they being honest andforthright with you?
We were very happy with thecompany that we worked for, and
they ended up reimbursing us forthings that we really didn't
view as very valuable.
David Nakhla (23:57):
Yeah, that's good.
Ron Elwell (23:58):
Very helpful, Ron and Dave knew that, yeah, so
have somebody knowledgeableabout financial things and
insurance things and you know,and Dave had all of that
financial skill set was, uh wasof great value.
David Nakhla (24:11):
Yeah, good, thank you, ron.
That's great.
Mike, do you have a story toshare with us?
Mike Cloy (24:16):
Been around a lot of disasters personally tornadoes,
17 moves in my own house andabout probably 12 under my dad's
house and we've lived intornadoes and hurricanes and
earthquakes and everything.
And I got to do a little bit ofthat as a disaster response
coordinator in the Army and seena lot of destruction, was the
(24:37):
defense coordinating officer forthe state of South Carolina and
North Carolina.
I know how the Department ofDefense comes along, the
governors and stuff and localcommunities which we recently
experienced here in WesternNorth Carolina where I live.
We had active duty and theNational Guard mobilized in
force mainly active duty withtheir aviation, rotary wing
(24:59):
aviation assets to get up inthese mountains and these nooks
and hollers.
As Seth would tell us, it's beena sad story.
Carl's talking about the waterleaving its banks and you never
thought it would ever come and athousand year flood and that's
the same thing here.
Right, these folks haven'texperienced anything like this
in a hundred years.
(25:20):
People were over a hundredyears last time.
Things flooded as badly as theydid and that was where it came
related.
The thing that resonated withthe gentleman in your story was
how people came alongside you.
To me You're stunned, you'rekind of like whoa.
It's overwhelming.
Where do I begin?
How do I even think throughthis?
(25:40):
And you had folks comealongside you who loved you yeah
, strangers, you know, and thosethat deeply love you in the
church and what that does is itcalms your soul.
It's the way the Lord calmsyour soul, in a way that's hard
to understand.
They put their arm around youand say they're going to be
(26:00):
there with you.
I mean the Good Samaritan right.
You see, the love of a stranger, someone that probably wouldn't
have been accepted by theperson he was rendering aid to.
So important to know thatsomeone's going to be there with
you.
That seemed to be a changingmoment, a salient point in time,
and that's what I thinkdisaster response is about.
David Nakhla (26:22):
I do oftentimes think about when a church
experience a disaster in itsmidst of flooding and that type
of thing of that kind of scale.
Yeah, it's oftentimes the firsttime that they've been through
that and that's oftentimes whenI go into the situations I
assume that they haven't beenthrough that before.
(26:43):
And that's where I was thinkingabout.
Yeah, carl and Ron, I mean thatmeans your local deacons
haven't probably ministered tothat particular situation and
they're not necessarily equippedwith all the answers and all
the strategies and processes.
And yet, even as Mike wassaying, the fact that their
(27:04):
presence, you know they'reshowing up, they're doing what
they can do, knowing thatthey've got your back, that
they're going to be there withyou through that is a big part
of that.
So, as you hone in maybe on itcould be the deacons, but the
diaconal it's.
You know, not necessarilydeacons, but the diaconal it's.
You know, not necessarilydeacons, but the diaconal
ministry you received.
Are there particular things asyou think through the process of
(27:27):
recovery?
Are there particular thingsthat you found were particularly
impactful as the church camealongside you?
Carl Miller (27:37):
brothers and sisters, yeah, I would say that
several things come to mind, oneof which is kind of the scaled
and was caused and the ministryopportunities that were then
presented.
It was, I think, a learningopportunity for a lot of the
(28:06):
disaster relief coordination andall of that type of thing, and
so some of the most impactfulthings were, though, the quick
response, right.
I mean, when you're dealingwith a flood, you're also
dealing with water receding, notin a uniform fashion, and so
the ability for men to get thereand help to arrive sometimes
(28:29):
has some delays, just becauseroads are blocked, trees are
down, whatever, and but you know, quick response and also an
informed response, right.
So somebody knowing not only,like you said, mike earlier,
that, yes, it's wonderful toknow that people had our backs
(28:51):
and we felt the love of thebrotherhood brothers and sisters
came and, you know, shared thelove of Christ with us and with
others who were affected, butfor those to come, who know what
to do right at the beginning,with the checklist, with knowing
(29:12):
inventory, we never thought ofoh yeah, you need to take an
inventory of things and thenalso being able to rally
resources right.
When you're hit with a flood,everybody, all the local
resources, are sapped up andtapped very quickly.
Everybody's tapping out all themajor home improvement stores,
(29:37):
you know, and so it's all gonevery quickly.
And so one of the blessings thatI think was very impactful for
us is that the men that showedup, especially initially, also
had resources from other placesin the United States and they
were able to make phone callsand they were able to tap into
(29:58):
people who could send usresources and bring it in from
afar.
And then we weren't waiting forthe backfill of resources
locally through retail providersor otherwise, right, so that
was helpful.
Also, the disaster reliefs team, their provision and
(30:19):
acquisition of dehumidifiers andsome important things that we
really needed right away to getthe water out of the air, you
know, as well as deal with themess that we were sorting
through.
And then, thirdly, just the Iwould say, the organization of
teams, and so, whether that belocally through our church, our
(30:41):
diaconate did a good job oforganizing members of our church
to come and to you know, takeshifts and work on the house and
do other things like that.
But also the teams and thecoordination through the OPC,
disaster relief are getting thetools and the things to you know
, help put not only thematerials and supplies but the
(31:03):
tools to use on those materialsand supplies to make things
happen.
That was helpful.
And then just coordinating teamsand funds to come in.
You know, as time progressed,so realizing that, yeah, it's
not just going to happen in twoweeks, three weeks, this is
(31:23):
going to be months of work, butcoordinated and there was a flow
, an overlap.
So we were never really withouta team in the house doing
something that was needed in thenext step of the process.
So I would say that those weresome of the things that were the
most impactful, you know, maybea fourth being just the love
(31:48):
and care of the body and thebroader body, even outside of
the OPC, and sending in funds sothat other resources could be
acquired and even used forbroader ministry in the
community too.
So those are the things thatcome to mind.
How about for you, ron.
Ron Elwell (32:05):
Well, I think again, our experience was a process
after the fire, kind of cleaningout, and then the process of
rebuilding, and it's after anevent like that and really any
event.
It's a long process and there'sdifferent stages where it's
(32:27):
really helpful to haveknowledgeable people to be able
to advise or direct in eachaspect of that.
So you know, people thatunderstand insurance, people
that understand how to muck out,how to clean up, and then we
had to find somebody to tearwhat remained of our house down,
(32:48):
got some advice about how to dothat.
A good Christian friend of minewho's in the insurance industry
called up and said I know abuilder that focuses on fire
restoration.
Well, our house wasn't quitefire restoration because it was,
(33:08):
but we ended up going with thegentleman because they you know
they had a lot of sympathy forour circumstance.
So just to be able to get therecommendation from people,
whatever their area of expertise, to kind of to set in.
So deacons can't do everything.
Deacons don't know everything,but you know the one thing that
(33:29):
you can, you can do as a deaconis to know where to look for
resources or who is trying tohave a list of where can I go to
answer this question, thisparticular challenge.
I mean, I was a deacon for anumber of years before I became
an elder, so I remember kind ofgoing through that process when
there was an emergency like Idon't know about this, who do I
(33:50):
contact?
And you know we would discusstrying to have resources in mind
just for those very unusualevents.
You know it's nice withdisaster relief.
I know probably got a nice listof people to call on at this
point.
But it's a very, very necessarycomponent of what deacons can
(34:11):
do, because it's not just doingbut it's also sort of advising
and counseling and encouraging.
David Nakhla (34:16):
Yeah.
Ron Elwell (34:17):
And maybe in some cases, recognizing this is
beyond my pay grade.
Let's find somebody that youknow.
To them it's oh yeah, we'vedone this before, we've got this
.
That's right To be able tooffer that on.
(34:40):
Don't have.
But it's been interesting towatch the development of what
we're able to do at this time.
I think it's wonderful.
David Nakhla (34:47):
Two things I would add or reflect on.
What you're saying is thatnobody expects a disaster to
happen to them.
It wasn't part of your plan no,for that week or for that day
or for that year.
But suddenly your day, week,year is totally changed.
This is put on top of you, ontop of your current living, and
so a role that deacons can playis coming alongside and carrying
(35:11):
some of that burden.
I mean, you could Google theresources you know type of thing
, but they may not be the expert, but they can help find some of
those resources.
And the other thing is that alot of times and I just
experienced this just this lastweek as I was visiting the
Hallies down in Florida theHallies are not eager to be home
remodelers.
(35:32):
That was not in their vision.
They're not that type of people.
They have no interest inremodeling.
Getting to pick their ownkitchen cabinets is not exciting
to them.
They like the cabinets theyhave because those were the ones
that were there.
And suddenly somebody who goesthrough a disaster is thrust
into this home remodelerscenario.
Ron Elwell (35:52):
A thousand decisions .
David Nakhla (35:53):
Right that they never chose and would never have
chosen, and are also vulnerableto be really taken advantage of
by the people at the end ofyour driveway, as you were
mentioning.
I think those are things thatdeacons can keep in mind when
somebody goes through this thatthis is not what they chose,
this was not their plan fortheir life this year, this
family, and how do we alleviatesome of that burden from them
(36:17):
and share in some of that?
Mike, do you have anything toadd to that?
Mike Cloy (36:20):
There's a couple of things that trigger some
thinking.
First of all, probably yourinformed response.
Thought is perfect.
The simple thing a deacon cando is know the sheep.
Know them, and I'm not talkingabout what car they drive or
what job he has, what the sheepto be known as is.
(36:42):
Where do they live?
How do you get there?
Do they have elderly in theirhome?
Do they have small children?
Do they have developmentallydelayed?
What is the picture of thatfamily?
Best way to look at it is thatwe all have family members.
We have children, I havegrandchildren and I know them.
I know them.
I know what makes my youngestgrandchild tick and I know their
(37:06):
tendencies.
And I think deacons really needto know that so that they don't
necessarily do the work butthey can marry up others that
are like-minded or similarexperiences or have gone through
some things that these familieshave gone through, and they can
be united.
So they're informed of thesheep because they know the
(37:29):
sheep and therefore they canassist the sheep by coordinating
, directing, sending resources,those type of things.
The other I'll give you anexample it's gifts and graces.
I mean Haney has a gift.
He knew the insurance adjusters, like sharks, were going to
move in and he needed to be inthe middle of it so that you
(37:53):
could focus or I'm wrong on whatyou need to focus on.
So that's his gift.
He's developed it.
He knows it may be firsthandexperience, but there are people
in the church that haveremarkable gifts and graces that
we don't even know about.
Now in Western North Carolinawe're going to build these
(38:14):
Chalmers homes.
The only reason why theseChalmers homes for the most
vulnerable have had their housepushed off its foundation or
totally destroyed because offlood and the velocity of water
is because we have a generalcontractor and an engineer in
our congregation.
That's their gift and so theywant to build chalmers homes
(38:35):
little 16 by 40.
We used to be 12, we're gone 16, now by 40.
And they know how to permit.
One of them is ability to signoff on engineering plans.
A deacon needed to know that.
A deacon can know that and helpthem get things done to serve
people.
(38:55):
So knowing, informed response,and then gifts and graces.
And then you get on the groundand you're continuing to know
about what happened and then yousend that information out.
As you said, all of a sudden,resources that were not
available locally are coming.
(39:16):
Why?
Because somebody said we needhelp, we need these resources
not available here.
And then they come.
That's what the D dart does inthe presbytery of the southeast
disaster events response team.
They give us a picture ofreality, then we can forward it
to the presbytery and even todavid, and david can come and
look as well.
And we've got all theseeyeballs trying to look at the
(39:40):
totality of this thing and makean informed response.
Good stuff, yeah, it's, itsomewhat naturally happens.
But what we want to do is makeit tighter.
Right, make it tighter andyou're talking, mike.
David Nakhla (39:55):
It sounds like even in the preparedness realm,
right, you're saying thedeaconsons know the gifts and
graces of your congregation forthat time when those things will
be needed.
When somebody's house burnsdown.
Someone's house is flooded.
Mike Cloy (40:11):
Right Now, ron made a key statement Know your
insurance policy.
Well.
When do we crack the bad boyopens?
When we have a disaster?
Oh, okay, this is what it'sgoing to cover Reading your
insurance policy before they,before you need it, you need it.
Right, it's the same thing inthe church.
David Nakhla (40:28):
Yeah.
Mike Cloy (40:29):
You get to know what.
If something happens here, howare we going to react?
Carl Miller (40:33):
Yeah, I think it's also helpful to consider the
whole FEMA situation too, right.
Especially, like in oursituation, we had to figure that
out really fast, okay, so whatis FEMA going to do and not
going to do, and you know, andall of that, and how does that
play into the insurancediscussion or into the relief
(40:57):
discussion?
You know in terms of who'sdoing what and who's covering
what, and so that's also animportant piece, I would add.
Mike Cloy (41:06):
I'll give you an example of that.
So David shows up with Seth andTroutman and some others and
Seth is educating this engineerand general contractor of our
church that's going to do somedisaster response on how FEMA
works and it was like lightbulbs going off.
Well, now we're living it.
So we're learning every daywhat FEMA will and will not do
(41:28):
and how it works.
That's information that peopleneed for a reform response.
It's a David Haney, it's aHaney anticipation moment, right
.
So when we know that there'sanother flood, out there in the
Rolodex is a bunch of people inMcDowell County or Neon who've
got experience with FEMA.
Well, they need to be tappedinto so that we can learn
(41:53):
lessons from those that havegone before us.
David Nakhla (41:55):
So oftentimes in disasters, we also find lots of
well-intentioned efforts thatare sometimes not so helpful,
and the biggest example I canthink of is with disaster
response.
They talk about the disasterafter the disaster, which is the
piles and piles and piles ofclothes Well-meaning,
(42:16):
well-intentioned, you know,clothes just sent.
Well-intentioned, you know,clothes just sent.
And I think I interacted withsomebody from Salvation Army and
they said that of the donationsthey receive, I think it's only
about 20% are really useful forbeing sold in their shops or
used, and I think we experiencedthat.
So that's just an example ofthe well-intentioned response to
(42:38):
disaster response.
That's always not so helpful,but maybe you guys can interact
a little bit more personally.
Maybe you can just give someguidance to deacons Like what
are some things that maybe theycould avoid doing that, whether
it occurred to you or maybe yousaw it with someone else, that
was not being the most helpfulthing.
Mike Cloy (42:57):
Let me give a mosaic of a disaster when it comes to
material, and this is that youcan read.
When helping hurts, they'llplay it out nicely in that book,
but our hearts hurt.
We see something happens.
We want to help, so we pushstuff to people thinking that
you know, they're wet, they needtowels, okay, or they're cold,
they need a jacket, and it'swell-intentioned.
(43:19):
And they want to do somethingfast to alleviate because their
heart hurts for the people thatare suffering.
Okay, that's, that's natural.
Natural it, but it's gotta becontrolled.
And that's where the informedresponse comes in and goes this
is what we need.
And you pull that stuff into thedisaster.
(43:40):
You don't push it, because whenyou push it, it's got to have a
place to be.
You know it may not be what youwant, and now it's eating up
space.
And then you talk aboutpilfering black market.
You talk it's a mess.
So I'll give you an example.
We got people building shedsfor people in the mountains
because it is now cold, and wegot snow on the ground and we
got county officials evictingthem from the very shed that
(44:03):
somebody with a good heart builtso that they can stay out of
the weather, but it has noventilation in it.
Next thing, you know, they gota heater in there and people are
gonna die, right, because theyhave no means to breathe.
When they're sleeping at night,they're taking in these fumes,
are gonna to wake up dead, right, right.
So that is unwise.
That's a perfect example.
(44:24):
We're putting people at riskbecause we're our hearts hurt.
We don't want them to be cold.
Carl Miller (44:28):
You know we're going to actually hurt them,
maybe harm them I think somethings for us that could be
helpful and I don't know if itreally falls within the deacons
specific, because the deaconsare local, know the area, et
cetera but maybe more broadly tothe disaster relief ministry is
(44:48):
that sometimes you do havepeople who are coming in and
have certain either gifts, orthey're given certain tasks when
they arrive to cover, and sothey think, well, this will be
sufficient for the need or takecare of the need.
But there may be local orregional, even environmental
(45:11):
things that the residents knowbut that people outside the area
don't.
So, for example, one of thethings for us was that there was
a wonderful intention to youknow, because of how everything
happened, there had to be somere-leveling and re-sloping of
our yards to help with drainageand because water was coming to
(45:35):
the house, and so they wereworking with that, and then,
after the skid steer andeverything got through, it's
time to try to put some grassback into place.
That wasn't just dirt Right,and so they were looking at the
seed, throwing seed on theground.
Well, in Houston that doesn'twork.
Well, it's going to just bepatchy.
You really have to lay sodRight, and so that was one of
(46:00):
the things that I would say wasgood intention, but it it just.
It needed to be sodded insteadof seeded, and so you know.
So some I guess that would fallunder the category of just some
of the decisions.
It would be good to not assumewhat would be good to get what
you want back in there, but alsoconsult the local residents to
(46:23):
make sure that you understandwhat works and what doesn't work
with the environment or withthe ground or other things like
that.
David Nakhla (46:32):
So oh, that's a great example.
You can even push that into thelocal church, Like there's a
difference between one familyand the next right.
What may work great in my homemay not work great in the Miller
home.
So let's really find out what'sgoing to be best for the
Millers.
Let's not assume that we knowwhat's best or even impose, do
more asking of questions thandirecting.
Ron Elwell (46:55):
What I think you need versus what you think you
need Right right, right, right,versus what you think you need.
David Nakhla (47:01):
Right, right, right, right.
Yeah, I also think.
Actually, carl, I think in yourhome we had some demo crews, if
I remember right, demo crews goa little bit hog wild and
actually began to just I don'tremember the details, we don't
get into the details but maybedismantle a little bit beyond
what you know was needed to bedismantled and actually were
creating more damage and, again,well-intentioned, but moving
(47:22):
faster than they knew what wasright.
So sure, mike, do you want totalk a little bit more, as we
even move towards a close, aboutencouraging proactive
preparations that deacons can do?
Mike Cloy (47:37):
And to me that's the prep phase.
The preparations before thestorm are most critical and I've
done some videos on set thatare hung on the opc disaster
response web page it's, I think,opc disaster responseorg.
You can find all that there's.
A bunch of other folks havedone similar stuff that's been
captured.
(47:58):
Tricious made sure it'savailable to everybody and, but
yeah, it to me.
It's always problematic whenpeople think when a storm hits,
your point of reference is goingto be familiar to you.
In other words, the street thatI turn on is going to be there
(48:18):
to get to their house.
Well, and maybe underwater,like car, like.
Carl said getting there.
But what's the workaround?
Maybe who has a boat, right?
Well, now you're trying to finda boat or ski to wherever those
things were, Carl, they'rerunning up and down the street
like it's a river or a lake, butit's always important, I think,
(48:38):
for the deacons to find helpers.
Helpers, and ron said it,deacons can't do everything, but
there's got to be a army ofhelpers.
That army, I didn't say navy ormarine corps of helpers, this is
a army of helpers who areattuned to the deacon as to
(49:01):
what's important, and they goout and survey and get to know
with the deacon, the families ofthe church, yeah, and nothing
else.
There's this communication.
Who's in the house and this hasgot to be updated.
So I mean, this is not one timething, right?
Yeah, like once a year, yourenew your insurance, your car
insurance, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.
(49:22):
I think that's the key andthere's a whole list of things
you can do on the webpage.
David Nakhla (49:29):
That'll help you.
That's good, Brothers.
Is there more that you,anything else that we didn't
cover that you'd like to includein this conversation before we
bring this plane in for alanding?
Mike Cloy (49:44):
Let me give you a lesson learned that I have not
experienced.
I think maybe Mike Kelly andNeon, as a site coordinator,
experienced it.
I mean, he could run for mayorof Neon right now if he wanted
to.
But Mike was successful becausehe invited and kept the
community, the local leaders andvarious committees informed
(50:08):
what was going on.
So we created trust andpartnerships and here in the
Western North Carolina, mcdowellCounty, we have an emergency
management center.
That's done a ton of work.
And then we got this guy namedJerry Lewis.
He's a pastor.
He's not who you think he isfrom days past.
He's not that funny.
No, he's got one of this GraceCommunity Church.
David Nakhla (50:26):
It's a pastor, he's not who you think he is,
from days past.
Mike Cloy (50:27):
He's not that funny.
No, he's got one of these gracecommunity churches big church.
They love God and they areinvolved in the community.
And he was sensing that there'sall these other churches that
are out there.
Like us, an OPC church wantedto do something.
He got us all to the table.
It was remarkable.
Everybody wanted to do Baptiston Mission, a bunch of others.
(50:50):
We're in a room together andthen all of a sudden they
produce a list of 300 homes.
They're either red tag oryellow tag.
Red tag destroyed Can't go backin.
Yellow tag you can go back inonce they get repaired.
That's an informed response.
Right Now we are all going.
I got all these over here andwe're marrying up
responsibilities.
(51:10):
So one thing I've learned sofar out of the disaster Western
North Carolina is somebody elseknows something.
You can get everybody that knowssomething in a room together.
It's a especially if it'sChristian focused governmental,
governmental agency emergencymanagement.
We actually have the countyplanner in the room with us In
(51:37):
the church, in the church rightand we're all talking about how
can we help these families andwhere are the gaps and where are
the seams, and we do that everyWednesday.
And as a pastor of a very largechurch in the community felt
the need to get people to starttalking to each other, and he
did it.
David Nakhla (51:57):
So wherever you can do that, yeah, yeah, wow,
that's really great, that'sgreat.
Carl Miller (52:06):
Yeah.
David Nakhla (52:07):
Well, brothers, it's really good to be with you.
Thank you for willing to openyour hearts and your minds to
what you experienced and again,I know that probably brings back
lots of difficult memories, buthopefully even encouraging
memories, as you think about theministry of the church to you
and, ultimately, Christ peoplebeing Christ's hands and feet.
(52:28):
I would encourage everybodywho's hearing this that OPC
Disaster Response is alwayslooking for more volunteers.
You can register as a disasterresponse volunteer on our
website, opcdisasterresponseorg.
There's other resources there.
We seek to stand ready to servewhen needs arise and M&A
(52:49):
Disaster Response.
Our PCA brothers and sisterswere mentioned in this as well
and we've got a greatrelationship with them.
We really love working withthem and we've had so many
people come to us throughReformed Mission Services, our
brothers in the URCNA.
I think they've sent so manyvolunteers to us, especially to.
(53:10):
Carl.
Miller knows lots of thosepeople because they came and
worked in his house.
Maybe even more of them servedin your home than OPC people
which is a great fraternalblessing for us to serve
together.
You can keep updated on ourefforts on Disaster Response
website and our Facebook page.
(53:30):
Mike, did you want to sayanything more about what's going
on in Southeast North Carolina?
Mike Cloy (53:35):
Yeah, things are coming to a starting point with
these Chalmers songs.
Again, we are serving the mostvulnerable that have no home and
they have very little funds nofamily in most cases that can
come alongside them.
Really tight emphasis on wordand mercy.
So we're ministering mercy butwe're trying really hard to
(54:00):
reach people with the word tothe point that once their home's
built they're going to have apicture of the church that
helped them land as OrthodoxPresbyterian Church and, to be
reminded, they'll have hostfamilies assigned to them so
that they can pray for them.
Get them to church.
Wherever church they go to,we'll get them to it.
If they're not church, we'llgive them a church to go to them
(54:23):
regularly.
As there's 16 by 40 homes beingbuilt by the organization of
our general contractor, our sitecoordinator, our hospitality
coordinator and our volunteercoordinator with people
throughout the country.
We've already had folks fromJoe Where's Joe from?
I can't remember.
Is it Indiana, illinois, andthen even down in Georgia.
(54:44):
A bunch of other generalcontractors have called us up
and said give me a house, I'llbuild it.
I mean, we got two calls todayGive me a house, I'll build it.
So we're excited.
We think at the beginning,somewhere about mid-January
we'll start putting our firsthouse up.
We've finally got all thepermittings done and some of the
material ready to go.
(55:05):
It's taken a little while to gothrough the process, but, yep,
we're really excited about it.
We did learn of one family thatis just terribly impacted and
their story within themselves.
Maybe something I can do foryou, trish, to write up this
particular family.
They almost lost their lives.
Their house was hit by amudslide, took about 24 hours to
(55:25):
get dug out and then put in hishead.
And then, when they got rescuedby air two hours later, another
mudslide totally wiped thehouse off the face of the earth.
So rescued, and now we'recoming alongside them to build
60 year old people no, no family, nothing to help them.
So we're going to help them.
I'll tell you more about themlater, but just keep us in
(55:47):
prayers as we get moving.
Take our first step, january,when the volunteers show and we
start going vertical with lumber.
David Nakhla (55:58):
So exciting to be able to be part of that.
We welcome you to join thoseefforts.
We will also be having aneffort begin in Florida to
rebuild the house of our pastordown there whose house was
flooded, so stay tuned for thoseon our websites and Facebook
pages, Instagram, etc.
I wanted to say my thanks toour producer, Trish Dugan, who
(56:18):
does such a fantastic job inpulling all of this together and
producing these episodes.
Ron, Carl and Mike thank eachof you for joining us today and
we'll see you on the nextepisode of the Reformed Deacon
Podcast.
I hope you enjoyed today'sdiscussion and were able to
garner some insights from thoseexperiences.
(56:39):
Regarding disaster response,before we end this episode, I
wanted to make you aware that wehave a list of resources on our
website, compiled over theyears and based on our
experiences, as well as fromoutside sources we thought are
helpful in disaster preparedness.
You can find the list ofresources by going to
opcdisasterresponse.
org and looking for theresources tab in the menu.
(57:03):
We hope you'll consider it astarting point in disaster
preparation for your church.
Thanks for joining us.
Go to our website,thereformdeacon.
org.
There you will find all ourepisodes, program notes and
other helpful resources, andplease make plans to join us
again next month for anotherepisode of the Reform Deacon
Podcast.
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