April 19, 2024 • 43 mins
In this episode elder Mike Cloy from Landis OPC in Marion, North Carolina and elder Seth Long from Neon Reformed OPC describe what it was like on the ground the days after the devastating flood hit Neon, Kentucky and the surrounding counties in July of 2022. Neon Reformed, a struggling mission work of the OPC, sits in an region known for extreme poverty and distrust. Sixteen counties in that region were affected by the "1,000-year flood". Over six feet of water accumulated inside the building of Neon Reformed OPC, leaving distruction in its wake.
Disaster Response isn't just about building structures; it's about building hope and restoring worship. Seth and Mike describe the emotional and physical toll on the residents and the way the Lord led many hands to help in the rebuilding of Neon Reformed and the outreach to the community. This effort, powerfully led by the Presbytery of the Southeast, showed what disaster response ought to look like and the many ways that the Lord cares for his people in desperate times.
Referenced in this episode:
Disaster Response Registry
Neon Reformed OPC
OPC Disaster Response
Contact OPC Disaster Response
OPC Presbytery of the Southeast
Watch all of the PDS V Videos
Neon Flooding
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Cloy (00:00):
But we all know that we are responsible for the unity
, peace and purity of the churchas a member of the body of
Christ.
All of us are responsible forthat, but in particular members
are responsible for that, all ofwhich of us are members of the
body, much less officers, but asmembers we commune with each
other.
We deny ourselves, we think thebest of those that are in
(00:22):
worship with us.
The whole point of healing inNeon was to get people back to
worship.
David Nakhla (00:28):
This is David Nakhla, administrator for the
Committee on Diaconal Ministries.
We're thankful for theopportunity to have you listen
in on this session from the 5thOPC Presbyterian Diaconal Summit
, co-hosted by the OPC'sCommittee on Diaconal Ministries
as well as Committee onMinisterial Care, held in
Chicago just this past November.
Although the content isprimarily focused toward those
(00:51):
serving on Presbyterian DiaconalCommittees, I trust you'll find
that many aspects of the talkwill benefit local deacons with
food for thought, withinspiration that comes from
thinking outside the box.
We urge you to value yourselffor the resources you'll hear
about in this episode.
As always, we welcome yourideas and feedback and we hope
that your work is blessed by thecontent that you hear.
(01:12):
Now let's get into this nextepisode.
Seth Long (01:14):
So what I thought I would do in the context of the
presentation Mike will givewe'll tag team a bit during that
presentation, but I was goingto lay the foundation, the
groundwork, to give a contextfor what we're talking about
today, because I don't know ifeverybody knows about Neon
Kentucky.
(01:35):
How many people have been there?
Raise your hand, yeah, that'spretty impressive really.
You haven't been to Neon unlessyou're going there.
You don't pass through theregion to go anywhere unless
you're going to Neon Kentucky.
I've labored in Neon since 1991.
(01:58):
I went there for a summer withmy wife to work on housing and
we never left.
We're still there.
When I went to Neon, I went as aMennonite, believe it or not,
and in an area where there is noReformed theology, where there
is a desert when it comes toReformed theology.
(02:21):
The Lord brought me and my wifeto Himself wrestling and
struggling through differentissues that we were facing and
looking at the Word.
Praise the Lord for Hisgoodness and His kindness.
He can do anything he wants todo, even with crooked sticks.
Like us, he can draw thestraight line.
(02:42):
Neon Kentucky is located in themountains of central Appalachia.
It is a hotbed or a leftoverremnants of the second great
awakening.
There's a lot that happenedback in that area and we see the
effects of it today in thechurches.
There are no reformed churchesin our area.
(03:04):
A lot of Pentecostal churches,a lot of Baptist churches, some
of the mainline churches.
We even have snake handlingchurches.
There's all kinds of.
There's a lot of churches therebut we're the only reformed
presence really in the region.
The region has been impacted alot by the coal mining industry
(03:29):
which has been happening therefor over 100 years.
The resources from the areahave been extracted.
Much of the wealth has beentaken out and not left behind
for the people who live there.
That's another story in ofitself.
But it's left an area ofpersistent poverty where there
is much entitlement, there aremany needs.
(03:51):
There's one statistic that weoften think about is that one in
four of our neighbors lives onless than $10,000 a year 25% of
the people.
What would you do if you livedon $10,000 or less a year?
(04:11):
The history of the mission workin Neon.
We held our first service onApril Fool's Day, 2000.
It was a Sunday.
That was our first service in2000.
Neon, kentucky is a specialwork, a special Neon work.
You know a lot of times, missionworks are usually five years,
seven years and you want toparticularize the denomination.
(04:35):
And the Presbytery has realizedthat this is a generational
work, that it will take years totransform people, families,
lives and bring them around.
And from day one we prayed thatthe Lord would raise up
particularly young men to beleaders in their homes and to be
(04:58):
leaders in the church.
Officers in the church.
Raise up solid young men in thechurch.
Raise up solid young men.
Praise the Lord that just a fewweeks ago the first young man
was installed as an evangelistin Hayes County Presbyterian
Church in Texas.
What a joy that was for thefolks at Neon to see and answer
(05:18):
that prayer.
23 years later.
It takes time, but this youngman was converted under the
ministry of the church, broughtto himself and grabbed a hold of
the Reformed faith and is nowan evangelist in the OPC.
God can do great things.
(05:39):
Today we have about 30.
On any given Sunday we can have30 gathered in worship.
On a good Sunday 36, butusually morning worship we have
30.
We have morning and eveningworship.
When we started the church backin 2000, we had two families
and a single lady, and the twofamilies were foreigners.
(06:01):
We weren't from there.
I'm from Pennsylvania, theother family was from Michigan
and it had very much the feel ofa mission work, where people go
into an area that aren't fromthe area trying to plant a local
church, but today, the 30people that have gathered, we're
the only ones there that aren'tfrom the area.
(06:23):
We've been there for 34 yearsnow.
We're kind of from the area,but no, we'll never be there
because I wasn't born there andmy papa is not from the area.
That's really important to thepeople in the mountains.
On July 28, 2022 is a morningI'll never, ever, ever forget in
(06:46):
my life.
It was an incredible day.
My son woke me up in themorning, going to work 6 o'clock
, and he said Dad, I don't thinkI should go to work today.
I said why not?
He said the culvert'soverflowing.
I said no.
(07:06):
He said come look.
I said you serious?
He said yeah, this culvert.
We never saw it overflow.
It would take a lot of water.
And I went outside and all Icould hear was the roar of water
rushing down the mountains.
And my first thought was toprotect my family and our
(07:31):
property.
So we got the headlamps out,I'm in my underwear, raincoat
and I'm on the tractor makingditches and things to try to
protect our house.
That's how the morning startedthat day and as it became light
I realized this was a prettysignificant flood.
But I didn't know howsignificant it was.
(07:52):
We would come to learn that 16counties would be declared a
disaster area.
We would come to learn thatthis record flood beat the
previous record flood set in1957.
The river crested at 14.6 feetin 1957.
(08:15):
This time the river crested atover 24 feet and it went
everywhere.
55 people would die in thisflood and I'm amazed more people
did not die in the manufacturedhousing, the trailers that were
by the creeks that got itwashed away.
The stories that we have heardabout how people survived is
(08:36):
just really pretty incredible.
We're in the middle of acatastrophic situation.
I used to kind of think MikeCloy was crazy.
I used to think that because hetalked about you know what we
needed to do to be prepared fordisaster.
You know you need satellitephones, you need strip mats, the
(08:58):
bridges are going to be out,the comms are going to be down.
The electric is going to bedown.
Guess what?
All that happened, every bit ofit.
And how are the people in ourchurches?
We don't know.
We can't get a hold of them.
In fact, we can't even get 200yards down the road because the
road isn't there or the water'sover the road.
(09:22):
It took over 12 hours for us toget three miles down the road
and out to the mouth of theholler where I got a call from
David and Mike.
Do you remember the call?
It was on that call these guyswere checking in with me and
(09:45):
they were telling me about theflood.
And I said you got to bekidding, this is on national
news.
And David's like yeah, this isa big deal, this is a one
percent storm, or one thousandyear flood is what they're
calling it.
All that I knew at that timewas right around me because we
(10:05):
had no TV, we had no phone, wehad no electricity.
The water was out, all thepumps were down, the sewers were
out, everything was gone.
It was a pretty amazing event.
That's when I knew it was goingto be a big deal.
The next day I would learn thatup in Neon, where the church is.
(10:25):
I'm almost ready for you, mike.
Up in Neon, the boom fork ofthe Kentucky River is usually a
couple inches deep and you canliterally jump across it.
It became a river, hundreds ofyards wide, at some places over
300 yards wide and over 12 feetdeep at spots.
A raging river.
And it went right through ourchurch six and a half feet of
(10:48):
water in our sanctuary Anincredible feeling, much, much
bigger than what we could handle.
We needed help, we wereinundated, and this is where
I'll turn it over to Mike.
Mike Cloy (11:03):
This is probably what you said Thursday night.
So we call the DART.
We have a DART, a disasteradvanced response team.
It's composed of about 15 menwith a trailer, about $25,000
worth of equipment, and thosemen are trained by FEMA on
several skill sets.
Most of them are pretty hardy,they know what it is to get
dirty.
Most of them are pretty hardy,they know what it is to get
(11:24):
dirty.
And we did not know, because wenormally call the church and
say tell us about the damage.
And we had no idea other thanthe pictures that Jay Bennett
was sending of his truckfloating down the river and the
fact that the water was up realhigh.
We know we had a flooding event.
We might add trees on houses.
(11:44):
We have the ability to tarproofs, pump out basements, cut
trees off, anything, just doabout it, anything that's needed
.
But we needed a picture, asnapshot, before we deployed the
DART.
Didn't have it, so we deployedthe DART .
The DART got there and theyfound themselves in the business
of mucking.
Got there and they foundthemselves in the business of
(12:06):
mucking.
The church had already startedmucking out, pulling off the
drywall and so forth, but we had, I think, six men show up with
a trailer, a bobcat on a trailer, and they went to work.
And it was remarkable alreadyto see what, especially the
youth of the church many of themlast name Long who were in
there getting it done.
(12:26):
So in about two days we wereable to do that.
So on Monday, there, the sready to redeploy back to where
the trailers kept in the Atlantaarea, at an OPC church down
there I decided to show up andsee the damage myself.
On Monday I talked to the dartthe day they leave.
And then Seth's there.
I still remember getting out ofmy car, my wife's with me.
(12:50):
I see Jay, jay and I have beentexting, iming on Facebook and
we hugged each other.
It hurt, he's a big boy, I meanI'm giving a man.
Hug that bad boy, he's a bigboy.
But we both cried a little bitat what we were seeing.
(13:11):
It hurt, it hurt people.
And so Seth put me in his truckand showed me the community.
One of the things Seth wanted meto understand is Neon is not
like any other place.
They had already been a peoplewho have suffered for many years
and now they're twice suffering, and he wanted to show me that
this is a special community.
And one of the things LacyAndrews, our regional home
(13:33):
missionary, who sits on theprovisional session for NEON,
made it clear to all of us, toour presbytery and even our
denomination, with his littlesaying of NEON doesn't need the
OPC, the OPC needs Neon, becausethere are people who need
Christ and they're hurting,they're in poverty, deep poverty
(13:59):
, and they don't trust much ofanything.
In fact, one of the things thatI learned from Seth was that
the church was often viewed as acult because of the gracious
love of Jesus.
It was not a works,righteousness based faith, it
was a grace based faith and thatwas foreign to them.
(14:19):
And so we had that particularstruggle that when we send
people there to make sure theyunderstood not to come into the
community and offend, offend thepeople who've been there for
years to look down upon them andtheir poverty, we held a little
devotional.
It had to do with theresurrection story we read in
(14:42):
the Gospels.
There's Seth, myself and Jay,and I wanted to remind them that
God will take care of thechurch, because death does not
win.
The death and destruction thatwe were looking at with the
(15:02):
water damage would not win.
That Christ has won and that hewill use this, even this
tragedy, for good.
All right, so we prayed and wewent to work.
This is what I teach my DARTmembers when they come on the
(15:25):
team.
I want them to understand whythey do disaster response.
The other thing is we do alittle church civics lesson
because one and this issomething david has to thump me
in the head every once in awhile with, but he hates my
triangle occasionally I get alittle carried away with it.
(15:45):
But we all know that we areresponsible for the unity, peace
and purity of the church.
As a member of the body ofchrist, all of us are
responsible for that, but inparticular, members are
responsible for that, all ofwhich of us are members of the
body, much less officers, but asmembers we commune with each
other.
We deny ourselves, we think thebest of those that are in
(16:08):
worship with us.
The whole point of healing inNeon was to get people back to
worship.
That is how God heals hispeople is through the worship of
him.
That is how he gives them lifeis through the worship of him.
And so we know that theshepherds are responsible.
(16:31):
So in communion, in unity, weprevent division or or schism,
but the shepherds areresponsible for the peace and
the purity of the church, butthey protect the church from
wolves who distract us fromworship.
You can think of the church ofColossi, where the mysticism is
(16:52):
in amongst them and it's now intheir church and it's
distracting them.
People are saying you needChrist and this right.
Well, the shepherds protect thesheep from the wolves, which
keeps them focused on worship.
We all know deacons are aboutmercy ministry.
But the question is, why dothey apply mercy?
(17:14):
Think of the Acts 6 story.
We have widows who can't getfood.
We even have priests who can'tget food.
They're in a crisis.
They cannot receive ministry ofthe word because they're
wondering where their next food,a bit of food's coming from, or
(17:35):
their safety or security.
And so they're wondering wheretheir next food bit of food's
coming from, or their safety orsecurity.
And so they're in distress.
And because deacons apply mercy,they help the person in
distress who has just seen theirhouse flow down a river or
water and they're sitting undera tree watching the water recede
(17:59):
so they can come out of it.
Come out of the tree.
They get their minds off thepicture of death and back on
Christ in worship by helpingthem understand the peace of the
gospel again.
Okay, get their eyes on Christ,get their eyes on the God
Almighty who they love.
So, deacons, apply mercybecause people are in distress.
(18:23):
They are not at peace.
We all have been there.
We have something that's goingon in our lives and we're trying
to worship and we aredistracted and we are not giving
of our whole heart, soul, mindand body to God Almighty in
worship, because we're thinkingabout whatever distress we might
be in.
Seth Long (18:43):
So so so the storm was on Thursday.
We started at the church onSaturday mucking out.
The dark team came in onSaturday.
Sunday we were worshiping.
We were worshiping Sunday, notin that building, no way.
We went to a park that waspretty high on a mountain under
(19:04):
a little shelter and it wasabout 16 people from the church
gathered that morning in ourwork clothes because guess what
we're doing after we worship ourwork clothes, because guess
what we're doing after weworship.
We were going to go back andcontinue the work of necessity
and start mocking out the churchagain that Sunday afternoon
(19:25):
after we worship.
But we worship that Sunday, andI think the PDC had a lot to do
with that, sending support.
There's a plan being puttogether.
We don't have to worry aboutall this.
We can focus on what the Lordhas given us to do.
So we worship together thatSunday, the next Sunday and for
about the next nine Sundays wewould worship in a Baptist
(19:48):
church after their service thatwas about 30 minutes away.
They offered it free of charge.
Say come worship at our church.
We know what happened in Eon,and that was a blessing too to
have a place to go to.
Mike Cloy (20:04):
So this slide is basically a picture of ministers
of the gospel raising theirhand at the beginning of worship
and at the end of worship andgiving the peace and the
benediction.
And we go out into the worldand we long for the next Sunday
where we are with God's peopleand receiving his blessings.
(20:25):
Right, what happens during theweek?
You have crisis, emergency,disasters, and it disrupts the
peace of the Lord and the wholegoal, Sunday to Sunday to Sunday
until God brings us home toglory is to rest in him and have
(20:49):
the peace that surpasses allunderstanding, which we will
have when we meet him face toface.
So that is the rhythm, therhythm of our lives, and so
disaster response is meant tosustain the rhythm of our lives,
which is worship.
(21:14):
Now, deacons, how did we prepare?
How does the PDc prepare fordisaster?
Simply put, we need to makesure we know our deacons in our
churches and those who arefulfilling those
responsibilities, and that theyknow their sheep.
And what you see on this graphis that and this is something
that I work with daily withhomeless people is, if the
(21:36):
homeless person or the personthat's in distress is connected
to their church, their community, the fellowship of believer,
the communion of saints, thenthey usually can bounce back
because they have somebody thatwill come to them and love them
and help them.
This is fellow members, buteven more so with a deacon.
But if they're isolated andthey live on an island, they
(21:59):
have a harder time, a moredifficult time bouncing back.
When regard to time management,are they prepared?
Do you know what happens whenall the road signs blow down and
you're trying to navigate acity that is being organized,
but do you know in time how tobe prepared?
(22:20):
And those that are reactive andisolated have a low ability to
weather a storm.
Those that are organized, havea plan, have a means to
communicate, a means to comealongside each other to find
gifts and graces amongst thebody of believers, have a much
(22:43):
easier it won't be easy mucheasier time and are able to
bounce back quicker and helpothers.
And that's the goal of the PDCis to help prepare deacons and
churches to know their sheep.
Do we know where our sheep live?
Do we know literally, is theremore than just one person that
(23:05):
knows how to get to somebody'shouse when a tornado blows
through and there's no way tonavigate off a road because the
road's full of debris and theroad signs down and all those
man-made features, landmarks aregone.
And do you know the capabilityof that family and even their
neighbors?
Do they have the ability?
Who's in the house?
(23:26):
Do you have developmentallydelayed children?
Do you have elderly?
Do you?
You know, you need to knowthose things.
This is something we try toteach our deacons from a PDC
perspective with regard todisaster response.
Know your sheep.
You got to know their gifts andgraces straight out of our
(23:48):
confession.
You need to know the outer manand the inner man, the outer man
and the inner man.
You can see what's listed thereand, most importantly, deacons
(24:09):
and the diaconal committees canassist with disaster response
registry.
It is absolutely huge.
I can call Trish or David andtell them give me an update of
everybody in my presbytery thatis registered as a PDC.
I'm going to look for them.
I'm fixing to give them a taskand a purpose.
Okay, Because they registered,I know who you are, I know where
your phone number is and I'mabout to reach out to you.
(24:30):
Okay, Big help.
If you do nothing else, getthem on the registry, Encourage
them to serve and get them onthe registry.
This was huge for us and thePresbytery of the Southeast we
have.
At the time we had probably 28churches with our mission works,
(24:54):
25 organized no, yeah, 25organized works and about 28,.
29 mission works.
I mean four or five missionworks to bring us up to 29,.
Maybe 30.
And we had probably I'm goingfrom memory we had 72, 73%
(25:15):
representation of volunteersfrom our own Presbytery.
We probably had, of those 25organized works, we probably had
18,.
19 of those churches hadvolunteers come from their
churches to help a fellow churchin the presbytery of the
southeast we had over 170volunteers total, many from
(25:37):
presbyteries.
Michigan, ontario was huge withthat contractor that came.
He was.
You remember him?
What was his name?
Yeah, that guy was remarkableyeah, from ohio.
Seth Long (25:50):
You know, a dynamic about having the presbytery come
to was that they were close,relatively speaking, and they
could come up for a day.
They didn't have to come for aweek or you know a lot of people
.
It's hard to get off a week,but a lot of people can get off
a day or two.
So having an active presbyteryreally enabled us to have a lot
of volunteers coming in for aday or two at a time, which was
(26:12):
a huge help, because sometimesyou really just need volunteers
for a day or two when you'redoing something.
Mike Cloy (26:18):
Yeah, yeah.
So how do we do it?
This is probably the key slide,and this is a proven model that
David taught us from hisobservations over the years, I
think even through otherdenominations.
It's the same thing we used atWilmington and New Bern when
they were hit by what was that?
Florence?
Florence, yeah, first thing wegot to do Is speak with a
(26:42):
session and a diaconate, if theyhave one, and find out what
their priorities are.
That's what we did with Sethand Jay when we went to see them
and pray on them, and then welet them know that we're going
to come alongside them as adisaster response.
Pdc and David is also, and Trishand everyone else at the
(27:04):
denominational level are goingto come alongside them, but
they're the main effort.
We're going to take our leadfrom them.
We're going to listen to whatthey want done first and when
they want it done, and thenwe're going to ask them to find
us a hospitality coordinator,someone on the ground that can
make sure those volunteers, whenthey get there, get housed and
(27:26):
that there's a means to feedthem.
We'll talk about thatuniqueness, in fact, I'll let
seth do that in a minute andthen we're going to find a
volunteer coordinator.
This person's huge.
They're the ones that receivethe hey, I want to go.
And they have to make sure thatthey're ready to go, insured,
right, they've signed therequisite forms, that they have
(27:49):
a skills assessment, thatthey're on the registry.
All that happens before theyeven get to go.
And this person's got to bestrong enough to say you can't
go, you won't sign the form.
Okay, literally, this personhas got to be able to say no.
And if they get in, you knowsomeone gets argumentative.
(28:10):
Then they just send them to me,I'll take care of it, all right
.
And then we've got to have asite coordinator, somebody
that's on the ground making surethey are listening to what the
session wants done and thebuilding of that sanctuary so we
can worship as fast as possible, and what goes first and what
goes second, what material needsto be there at the right time.
(28:31):
And he's communicating to thevolunteer coordinator saying I
need this skill set at this week, find it.
And she said I already got it,just tell me when they need to
be there.
And so it all is synchronizedon the ground.
And then these three entitiesmeet.
I think we met weekly, maybeeven a little more often at the
(28:54):
beginning, to make sure that wewere supporting those that were
on the ground and that they weretalking to each other.
Okay, and we just did thisevery day, every week, until it
was done, and at the end, oneyear later, when did you all
start worshiping in there, right?
Seth Long (29:20):
So one year, july was the flood and then that October
we were back worshiping.
It wasn't finished but we wereworshiping in the building.
A few comments about the waythis all worked out was pretty
amazing to me.
When you think about a sitecoordinator, this is all
teamwork that's happening herehas to be communication, has to
(29:43):
be people on the same page.
We had like five differentphases of site coordinators.
We didn't need one coordinatorto be there for months and
months.
My son started out.
We called him the chief muckraker and that's from the
Pilgrim's Progress, if youremember.
But his job for 30 days was tocoordinate the muck raking.
(30:05):
I mean just raking out the muckin our building and when we got
the mud out of there and it waspressure washed, we started
doing neighboring buildings inthe town with volunteers as a
witness to provide hope andbecause we had the skill and the
ability to do so, because weare a connected church, it made
(30:25):
that possible.
Jim Flanagan, a man that came,wasn't necessarily a site
coordinator, but here's a manwithin the contact list, within
our presbytery, whose career washis work was done around the
restorations of floods and firesA wealth of knowledge that
(30:47):
helped us to know what to do.
Know what to do.
Another mentioned Joe Fraughtfrom Ohio, an amazing man that
was brought at the right time.
I had a scheduled vacation inSeptember and I was pretty
determined to get away, becauseit was a pretty demanding couple
(31:07):
of months and I was afraid togo away but I needed to go away.
Joe was the right man.
This all happened in God'sprovidence that he could come
the week I was leaving and a lotof things could go wrong if you
have the wrong person on site.
He was the right man.
He was a contractor withable-bodied boys that came in
(31:31):
and provided the leadership to abig lift, was figuring out what
materials we needed to take itall the way to the trim stage.
That was a heavy lift.
I didn't have time for it.
He came in, we met with him.
He ciphered all that down, gotthe materials delivered from
Ohio into the region.
Our region was inundated.
(31:53):
It was hard to get materials.
He coordinated the materials tobe brought down and they even
gave us a discount and heprovided the leadership to get
that building.
He did a great job.
Mike Cloy (32:05):
Let me hold you there , because this is something.
This is the tension that's inthe room.
We want to do what the sessionwants done.
You got a stubborn PresbyterianDiacal Committee member who's
saying we're moving, all right,don't blink, this is going to
get done.
He's going on vacation and he'sthinking all of what we want to
(32:27):
do while I'm gone is going towait till I get back.
All right.
And I said I said I got thisguy, joe, I've been talking to
and he sounds pretty remarkable,and he said he'd come down.
Would you mind talking to him?
And the two of them met andnext thing, you know they're
walking around the building likethis.
So we're holding hands.
And he came back with a smileon his face, a touchdown, we're
good.
Seth Long (32:47):
So it's like so my career has been around working
with volunteers.
A lot of people coming in, alot of work's going to get done
in one week.
Wrong man there.
It's a disaster and it wasbeautiful how the Lord provided
I pushed back, mike pushedpeople back, but it all worked
out very well.
Lord bless the other thing.
(33:07):
I would say an HVAC contractor,presbytery, mid-atlantic or PSC
.
Mike Cloy (33:15):
That was us.
Seth Long (33:16):
That was us came in this is what he does for a
living and he replaced all theHVAC stuff in the building that
had been flooded out.
Huge help.
Another circle that could beadded to this diagram, I think,
would be like the NAPARC helpthat we received.
So David was able to let thePCA know, or they contacted him,
(33:41):
brought it down to the PDC andthey were an incredible help.
They brought some of thecoolest equipment for us to use
a stand-up skid steer that wecould get through doorways to
get the mud out and the debris.
With a big claw on you couldgrab a water heater and go out
of the building with it.
It's pretty cool.
Um, a whole pressure washingtrailer rigged up with tanks and
(34:04):
generators and intake hoses.
I mean, it was, it was.
It was a lot of money and theybrought that and parked it on
the street.
Use it for whatever you want todo.
And we pressure washed ourbuildings and probably three
other buildings during thecourse of the time that was
there Again in helping ourneighbors that were all around
(34:27):
in town, inundated, overwhelmed,without the resources that we
had at our hand.
Mike Cloy (34:33):
So Seth is continuing .
You know October we're backkind of worshiping, we're still
working it.
It gets close to December andSeth's like we need to get in
the community.
So we started getting in thecommunities in the month of
December but then we realizedit's going to be too cold to be
doing anything.
So we kind of went into atactical pause with the purpose
of in March, when we started upagain, the full effort had
(34:56):
shifted from getting the worshipspace ready to worship in,
because it was almost there, wasgetting there and we were going
into the community.
And that's when we got a newsite coordinator, a deacon,
another deacon.
We had another deacon who washelping with the inside of the
church, but then we had a deacondo ministry in the community.
You need to tell them aboutthis guy.
Seth Long (35:16):
So Mike Kelly.
First I should say that JeffDavis raise your hand.
Jeff, jeff made a couple foraysdown to Neon too and he was
instrumental in the first Shedsof Hope.
It's a PCA ministry where theyprovide in-disaster sheds for
people, because when you have adisaster like this, one of the
(35:40):
things that you have a hard timeis the stuff that you salvage.
What do you do with it?
And they have these 12 by 10sheds that they made available
24 of them for us to take to ourneighbors, people in the
community that lost everythingthey had.
And it was an opportunity forMike Kelly picked up this work,
(36:02):
a deacon from our presbytery.
He was up for months and hewould take a team of volunteers
and go put up a shed one day,and when they're putting up a
shed they were meeting with afamily.
It was a mercy ministryoutreach idea that we could
visit, establish relationshipsand then also you could go back
(36:23):
Like the shed was built.
You could go back and paintthat shed later on.
There was excuses.
You have to go back andinteract with people.
So it was really kind of anoutreach opportunity during the
storm.
Also say, mike Kelly was adeacon who spent a long time in
Neon and came to love the place.
(36:44):
The people loved him and MikeKelly has been coming back at
least a week or two everyquarter to be a deacon for us at
the church.
It's what seven hours to getthere, but he loves the people.
(37:05):
I got a call this September fromthe mayor of Neon.
He said what's that guy's namefrom North Carolina that came in
and did so much in this town?
I said you talking about MikeKelly and Sylvia.
He said what's that guy's namefrom North Carolina that came in
and did so much in this town?
I said you talking about MikeKelly and Sylvia.
He said yes.
He said we're going to honorthem publicly on stage during
our festival.
And of all people you know,somebody that came to work
(37:26):
through the church wasrecognized by the governance of
the town because he did so muchand interacted with the people
in the town.
It was beautiful, it was reallywell.
Not everybody can do that inNeon, kentucky, but Mike is a
gifted man.
Mike Cloy (37:41):
Finally, and this reminds me of Chris's devotional
when we started our conferencewe never lose sight.
The disasters can help us, helppeople, understand redemption.
Lacey Andrews will tell youthat disasters are many judgment
warnings that point to the needfor redemption.
(38:03):
And I got several years incombat and I can tell you,
having been shot at a few timesand mortared, some near death
experiences.
It makes you think about whereyou're going to be when you die.
These events, when you hear thestories of these people who
nearly passed away, and thenthose that were loved ones that
(38:25):
did, it's an opportunity tospeak of Christ because they're
vulnerable.
The lord, providentially, hasbrought suffering for a reason
in many cases to point them totheir need for him, because they
will die in their trespassesand sins if they don't.
That's all I got.
Seth Long (38:47):
My beard looks better than yours anyhow um, I guess
um, does anybody have anyquestions about the way this
operation worked or anythingabout the situation that we're
talking to?
Yes, sir.
David Nakhla (39:04):
Chair Gostin, do you have to worry?
Seth Long (39:09):
about permits and all that kind of stuff.
Mike Cloy (39:12):
Great question, that's a great security.
I said do you have to worryabout permits and all that kind
of stuff?
Great question, that's a greatquestion.
We almost came to a standstillone time remember which time was
that.
It was about the building and,uh, and being able to use it
again because of all the rulesthat may change on our damaged
building and all that.
Seth Long (39:30):
Oh, there was some floodplain issues that we had to
work through with FEMA.
We did not report this to FEMA.
We did not receive any of theFEMA funds.
We were kind of worried aboutsome of the strings that come
with those dollars and what theymay or may not require.
But in Neon Kentucky, there isno code jurisdiction.
(39:54):
There is no building permittingprocesses I see Pete there,
there's not.
I could go out and startbuilding a house on a piece of
property without pulling thefirst permit or getting anybody
to say you can or can't do that.
We just start building there inthat way.
So in that way it's very it'san unusual place to be working.
(40:16):
I think our biggest concern wasfor safety, you know, the safety
of volunteers.
That's not all mud that'slaying around there it could be
anything in that mud and justprotecting our volunteers,
making sure we kept people safeand somebody didn't catch
anything really bad.
Yes, sir, it was part of theslide, but what about logistics?
(40:38):
You touched on it, but what wasit like?
So he's asking about logistics.
So the first floor of ourchurch is where we worship,
where we eat Sunday school rooms.
The second floor are threeapartments One the pastor lives
(41:01):
in, the two other were vacant sowe use volunteers to get them
in the condition to housevolunteers on site right there,
and that was a huge in the wayof logistics.
It made things a lot easier,Logistics.
One of the big pieces ofequipment that really helped us
(41:22):
out was the commercialevaporators and fans that are in
a trailer that are owned by thePSE, pdc, and they were brought
to us.
The trailer from Michigan,ontario, was brought to us with
tools I believe that's the onethat came to us and those types
(41:42):
of logistics.
But the hard logistics really alot of work.
The hard work in a lot of thisis a volunteer coordinator
scheduling the right amount ofpeople, the right type of people
when you need them.
That's a logistical job.
That's probablyunderappreciated, but she had a
very difficult task.
That's hard work.
Mike Cloy (42:02):
Normally, usually generally, you do not want to
burden the church with a bunchof volunteers that they didn't
get to take care of.
So we can lean on David and the.
So we can lean on David and thePCA, where they have bunkhouses
, shower trailers and a bunch ofother things, if need be, and
set them up.
We had no place to do that,Remember a flood had just come
(42:23):
and so space in general was hardto find.
So it was a true blessing tohave this place above.
It did limit well, we won't getinto the word limit, but it did
limit the number of volunteersthat could come and the mixture
of male, female.
David Nakhla (42:35):
Thanks for joining us.
Go to our websitethereformedeaconorg.
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 Reformed Deacon
Podcast.
But we all know that we are responsible for the unity
, peace and purity of the churchas a member of the body of
Christ.
All of us are responsible forthat, but in particular members
are responsible for that, all ofwhich of us are members of the
body, much less officers, but asmembers we commune with each
other.
We deny ourselves, we think thebest of those that are in
(00:22):
worship with us.
The whole point of healing inNeon was to get people back to
worship.
David Nakhla (00:28):
This is David Nakhla, administrator for the
Committee on Diaconal Ministries.
We're thankful for theopportunity to have you listen
in on this session from the 5thOPC Presbyterian Diaconal Summit
, co-hosted by the OPC'sCommittee on Diaconal Ministries
as well as Committee onMinisterial Care, held in
Chicago just this past November.
Although the content isprimarily focused toward those
(00:51):
serving on Presbyterian DiaconalCommittees, I trust you'll find
that many aspects of the talkwill benefit local deacons with
food for thought, withinspiration that comes from
thinking outside the box.
We urge you to value yourselffor the resources you'll hear
about in this episode.
As always, we welcome yourideas and feedback and we hope
that your work is blessed by thecontent that you hear.
(01:12):
Now let's get into this nextepisode.
Seth Long (01:14):
So what I thought I would do in the context of the
presentation Mike will givewe'll tag team a bit during that
presentation, but I was goingto lay the foundation, the
groundwork, to give a contextfor what we're talking about
today, because I don't know ifeverybody knows about Neon
Kentucky.
(01:35):
How many people have been there?
Raise your hand, yeah, that'spretty impressive really.
You haven't been to Neon unlessyou're going there.
You don't pass through theregion to go anywhere unless
you're going to Neon Kentucky.
I've labored in Neon since 1991.
(01:58):
I went there for a summer withmy wife to work on housing and
we never left.
We're still there.
When I went to Neon, I went as aMennonite, believe it or not,
and in an area where there is noReformed theology, where there
is a desert when it comes toReformed theology.
(02:21):
The Lord brought me and my wifeto Himself wrestling and
struggling through differentissues that we were facing and
looking at the Word.
Praise the Lord for Hisgoodness and His kindness.
He can do anything he wants todo, even with crooked sticks.
Like us, he can draw thestraight line.
(02:42):
Neon Kentucky is located in themountains of central Appalachia.
It is a hotbed or a leftoverremnants of the second great
awakening.
There's a lot that happenedback in that area and we see the
effects of it today in thechurches.
There are no reformed churchesin our area.
(03:04):
A lot of Pentecostal churches,a lot of Baptist churches, some
of the mainline churches.
We even have snake handlingchurches.
There's all kinds of.
There's a lot of churches therebut we're the only reformed
presence really in the region.
The region has been impacted alot by the coal mining industry
(03:29):
which has been happening therefor over 100 years.
The resources from the areahave been extracted.
Much of the wealth has beentaken out and not left behind
for the people who live there.
That's another story in ofitself.
But it's left an area ofpersistent poverty where there
is much entitlement, there aremany needs.
(03:51):
There's one statistic that weoften think about is that one in
four of our neighbors lives onless than $10,000 a year 25% of
the people.
What would you do if you livedon $10,000 or less a year?
(04:11):
The history of the mission workin Neon.
We held our first service onApril Fool's Day, 2000.
It was a Sunday.
That was our first service in2000.
Neon, kentucky is a specialwork, a special Neon work.
You know a lot of times, missionworks are usually five years,
seven years and you want toparticularize the denomination.
(04:35):
And the Presbytery has realizedthat this is a generational
work, that it will take years totransform people, families,
lives and bring them around.
And from day one we prayed thatthe Lord would raise up
particularly young men to beleaders in their homes and to be
(04:58):
leaders in the church.
Officers in the church.
Raise up solid young men in thechurch.
Raise up solid young men.
Praise the Lord that just a fewweeks ago the first young man
was installed as an evangelistin Hayes County Presbyterian
Church in Texas.
What a joy that was for thefolks at Neon to see and answer
(05:18):
that prayer.
23 years later.
It takes time, but this youngman was converted under the
ministry of the church, broughtto himself and grabbed a hold of
the Reformed faith and is nowan evangelist in the OPC.
God can do great things.
(05:39):
Today we have about 30.
On any given Sunday we can have30 gathered in worship.
On a good Sunday 36, butusually morning worship we have
30.
We have morning and eveningworship.
When we started the church backin 2000, we had two families
and a single lady, and the twofamilies were foreigners.
(06:01):
We weren't from there.
I'm from Pennsylvania, theother family was from Michigan
and it had very much the feel ofa mission work, where people go
into an area that aren't fromthe area trying to plant a local
church, but today, the 30people that have gathered, we're
the only ones there that aren'tfrom the area.
(06:23):
We've been there for 34 yearsnow.
We're kind of from the area,but no, we'll never be there
because I wasn't born there andmy papa is not from the area.
That's really important to thepeople in the mountains.
On July 28, 2022 is a morningI'll never, ever, ever forget in
(06:46):
my life.
It was an incredible day.
My son woke me up in themorning, going to work 6 o'clock
, and he said Dad, I don't thinkI should go to work today.
I said why not?
He said the culvert'soverflowing.
I said no.
(07:06):
He said come look.
I said you serious?
He said yeah, this culvert.
We never saw it overflow.
It would take a lot of water.
And I went outside and all Icould hear was the roar of water
rushing down the mountains.
And my first thought was toprotect my family and our
(07:31):
property.
So we got the headlamps out,I'm in my underwear, raincoat
and I'm on the tractor makingditches and things to try to
protect our house.
That's how the morning startedthat day and as it became light
I realized this was a prettysignificant flood.
But I didn't know howsignificant it was.
(07:52):
We would come to learn that 16counties would be declared a
disaster area.
We would come to learn thatthis record flood beat the
previous record flood set in1957.
The river crested at 14.6 feetin 1957.
(08:15):
This time the river crested atover 24 feet and it went
everywhere.
55 people would die in thisflood and I'm amazed more people
did not die in the manufacturedhousing, the trailers that were
by the creeks that got itwashed away.
The stories that we have heardabout how people survived is
(08:36):
just really pretty incredible.
We're in the middle of acatastrophic situation.
I used to kind of think MikeCloy was crazy.
I used to think that because hetalked about you know what we
needed to do to be prepared fordisaster.
You know you need satellitephones, you need strip mats, the
(08:58):
bridges are going to be out,the comms are going to be down.
The electric is going to bedown.
Guess what?
All that happened, every bit ofit.
And how are the people in ourchurches?
We don't know.
We can't get a hold of them.
In fact, we can't even get 200yards down the road because the
road isn't there or the water'sover the road.
(09:22):
It took over 12 hours for us toget three miles down the road
and out to the mouth of theholler where I got a call from
David and Mike.
Do you remember the call?
It was on that call these guyswere checking in with me and
(09:45):
they were telling me about theflood.
And I said you got to bekidding, this is on national
news.
And David's like yeah, this isa big deal, this is a one
percent storm, or one thousandyear flood is what they're
calling it.
All that I knew at that timewas right around me because we
(10:05):
had no TV, we had no phone, wehad no electricity.
The water was out, all thepumps were down, the sewers were
out, everything was gone.
It was a pretty amazing event.
That's when I knew it was goingto be a big deal.
The next day I would learn thatup in Neon, where the church is.
(10:25):
I'm almost ready for you, mike.
Up in Neon, the boom fork ofthe Kentucky River is usually a
couple inches deep and you canliterally jump across it.
It became a river, hundreds ofyards wide, at some places over
300 yards wide and over 12 feetdeep at spots.
A raging river.
And it went right through ourchurch six and a half feet of
(10:48):
water in our sanctuary Anincredible feeling, much, much
bigger than what we could handle.
We needed help, we wereinundated, and this is where
I'll turn it over to Mike.
Mike Cloy (11:03):
This is probably what you said Thursday night.
So we call the DART.
We have a DART, a disasteradvanced response team.
It's composed of about 15 menwith a trailer, about $25,000
worth of equipment, and thosemen are trained by FEMA on
several skill sets.
Most of them are pretty hardy,they know what it is to get
dirty.
Most of them are pretty hardy,they know what it is to get
(11:24):
dirty.
And we did not know, because wenormally call the church and
say tell us about the damage.
And we had no idea other thanthe pictures that Jay Bennett
was sending of his truckfloating down the river and the
fact that the water was up realhigh.
We know we had a flooding event.
We might add trees on houses.
(11:44):
We have the ability to tarproofs, pump out basements, cut
trees off, anything, just doabout it, anything that's needed
.
But we needed a picture, asnapshot, before we deployed the
DART.
Didn't have it, so we deployedthe DART .
The DART got there and theyfound themselves in the business
of mucking.
Got there and they foundthemselves in the business of
(12:06):
mucking.
The church had already startedmucking out, pulling off the
drywall and so forth, but we had, I think, six men show up with
a trailer, a bobcat on a trailer, and they went to work.
And it was remarkable alreadyto see what, especially the
youth of the church many of themlast name Long who were in
there getting it done.
(12:26):
So in about two days we wereable to do that.
So on Monday, there, the sready to redeploy back to where
the trailers kept in the Atlantaarea, at an OPC church down
there I decided to show up andsee the damage myself.
On Monday I talked to the dartthe day they leave.
And then Seth's there.
I still remember getting out ofmy car, my wife's with me.
(12:50):
I see Jay, jay and I have beentexting, iming on Facebook and
we hugged each other.
It hurt, he's a big boy, I meanI'm giving a man.
Hug that bad boy, he's a bigboy.
But we both cried a little bitat what we were seeing.
(13:11):
It hurt, it hurt people.
And so Seth put me in his truckand showed me the community.
One of the things Seth wanted meto understand is Neon is not
like any other place.
They had already been a peoplewho have suffered for many years
and now they're twice suffering, and he wanted to show me that
this is a special community.
And one of the things LacyAndrews, our regional home
(13:33):
missionary, who sits on theprovisional session for NEON,
made it clear to all of us, toour presbytery and even our
denomination, with his littlesaying of NEON doesn't need the
OPC, the OPC needs Neon, becausethere are people who need
Christ and they're hurting,they're in poverty, deep poverty
(13:59):
, and they don't trust much ofanything.
In fact, one of the things thatI learned from Seth was that
the church was often viewed as acult because of the gracious
love of Jesus.
It was not a works,righteousness based faith, it
was a grace based faith and thatwas foreign to them.
(14:19):
And so we had that particularstruggle that when we send
people there to make sure theyunderstood not to come into the
community and offend, offend thepeople who've been there for
years to look down upon them andtheir poverty, we held a little
devotional.
It had to do with theresurrection story we read in
(14:42):
the Gospels.
There's Seth, myself and Jay,and I wanted to remind them that
God will take care of thechurch, because death does not
win.
The death and destruction thatwe were looking at with the
(15:02):
water damage would not win.
That Christ has won and that hewill use this, even this
tragedy, for good.
All right, so we prayed and wewent to work.
This is what I teach my DARTmembers when they come on the
(15:25):
team.
I want them to understand whythey do disaster response.
The other thing is we do alittle church civics lesson
because one and this issomething david has to thump me
in the head every once in awhile with, but he hates my
triangle occasionally I get alittle carried away with it.
(15:45):
But we all know that we areresponsible for the unity, peace
and purity of the church.
As a member of the body ofchrist, all of us are
responsible for that, but inparticular, members are
responsible for that, all ofwhich of us are members of the
body, much less officers, but asmembers we commune with each
other.
We deny ourselves, we think thebest of those that are in
(16:08):
worship with us.
The whole point of healing inNeon was to get people back to
worship.
That is how God heals hispeople is through the worship of
him.
That is how he gives them lifeis through the worship of him.
And so we know that theshepherds are responsible.
(16:31):
So in communion, in unity, weprevent division or or schism,
but the shepherds areresponsible for the peace and
the purity of the church, butthey protect the church from
wolves who distract us fromworship.
You can think of the church ofColossi, where the mysticism is
(16:52):
in amongst them and it's now intheir church and it's
distracting them.
People are saying you needChrist and this right.
Well, the shepherds protect thesheep from the wolves, which
keeps them focused on worship.
We all know deacons are aboutmercy ministry.
But the question is, why dothey apply mercy?
(17:14):
Think of the Acts 6 story.
We have widows who can't getfood.
We even have priests who can'tget food.
They're in a crisis.
They cannot receive ministry ofthe word because they're
wondering where their next food,a bit of food's coming from, or
(17:35):
their safety or security.
And so they're wondering wheretheir next food bit of food's
coming from, or their safety orsecurity.
And so they're in distress.
And because deacons apply mercy,they help the person in
distress who has just seen theirhouse flow down a river or
water and they're sitting undera tree watching the water recede
(17:59):
so they can come out of it.
Come out of the tree.
They get their minds off thepicture of death and back on
Christ in worship by helpingthem understand the peace of the
gospel again.
Okay, get their eyes on Christ,get their eyes on the God
Almighty who they love.
So, deacons, apply mercybecause people are in distress.
(18:23):
They are not at peace.
We all have been there.
We have something that's goingon in our lives and we're trying
to worship and we aredistracted and we are not giving
of our whole heart, soul, mindand body to God Almighty in
worship, because we're thinkingabout whatever distress we might
be in.
Seth Long (18:43):
So so so the storm was on Thursday.
We started at the church onSaturday mucking out.
The dark team came in onSaturday.
Sunday we were worshiping.
We were worshiping Sunday, notin that building, no way.
We went to a park that waspretty high on a mountain under
(19:04):
a little shelter and it wasabout 16 people from the church
gathered that morning in ourwork clothes because guess what
we're doing after we worship ourwork clothes, because guess
what we're doing after weworship.
We were going to go back andcontinue the work of necessity
and start mocking out the churchagain that Sunday afternoon
(19:25):
after we worship.
But we worship that Sunday, andI think the PDC had a lot to do
with that, sending support.
There's a plan being puttogether.
We don't have to worry aboutall this.
We can focus on what the Lordhas given us to do.
So we worship together thatSunday, the next Sunday and for
about the next nine Sundays wewould worship in a Baptist
(19:48):
church after their service thatwas about 30 minutes away.
They offered it free of charge.
Say come worship at our church.
We know what happened in Eon,and that was a blessing too to
have a place to go to.
Mike Cloy (20:04):
So this slide is basically a picture of ministers
of the gospel raising theirhand at the beginning of worship
and at the end of worship andgiving the peace and the
benediction.
And we go out into the worldand we long for the next Sunday
where we are with God's peopleand receiving his blessings.
(20:25):
Right, what happens during theweek?
You have crisis, emergency,disasters, and it disrupts the
peace of the Lord and the wholegoal, Sunday to Sunday to Sunday
until God brings us home toglory is to rest in him and have
(20:49):
the peace that surpasses allunderstanding, which we will
have when we meet him face toface.
So that is the rhythm, therhythm of our lives, and so
disaster response is meant tosustain the rhythm of our lives,
which is worship.
(21:14):
Now, deacons, how did we prepare?
How does the PDc prepare fordisaster?
Simply put, we need to makesure we know our deacons in our
churches and those who arefulfilling those
responsibilities, and that theyknow their sheep.
And what you see on this graphis that and this is something
that I work with daily withhomeless people is, if the
(21:36):
homeless person or the personthat's in distress is connected
to their church, their community, the fellowship of believer,
the communion of saints, thenthey usually can bounce back
because they have somebody thatwill come to them and love them
and help them.
This is fellow members, buteven more so with a deacon.
But if they're isolated andthey live on an island, they
(21:59):
have a harder time, a moredifficult time bouncing back.
When regard to time management,are they prepared?
Do you know what happens whenall the road signs blow down and
you're trying to navigate acity that is being organized,
but do you know in time how tobe prepared?
(22:20):
And those that are reactive andisolated have a low ability to
weather a storm.
Those that are organized, havea plan, have a means to
communicate, a means to comealongside each other to find
gifts and graces amongst thebody of believers, have a much
(22:43):
easier it won't be easy mucheasier time and are able to
bounce back quicker and helpothers.
And that's the goal of the PDCis to help prepare deacons and
churches to know their sheep.
Do we know where our sheep live?
Do we know literally, is theremore than just one person that
(23:05):
knows how to get to somebody'shouse when a tornado blows
through and there's no way tonavigate off a road because the
road's full of debris and theroad signs down and all those
man-made features, landmarks aregone.
And do you know the capabilityof that family and even their
neighbors?
Do they have the ability?
Who's in the house?
(23:26):
Do you have developmentallydelayed children?
Do you have elderly?
Do you?
You know, you need to knowthose things.
This is something we try toteach our deacons from a PDC
perspective with regard todisaster response.
Know your sheep.
You got to know their gifts andgraces straight out of our
(23:48):
confession.
You need to know the outer manand the inner man, the outer man
and the inner man.
You can see what's listed thereand, most importantly, deacons
(24:09):
and the diaconal committees canassist with disaster response
registry.
It is absolutely huge.
I can call Trish or David andtell them give me an update of
everybody in my presbytery thatis registered as a PDC.
I'm going to look for them.
I'm fixing to give them a taskand a purpose.
Okay, Because they registered,I know who you are, I know where
your phone number is and I'mabout to reach out to you.
(24:30):
Okay, Big help.
If you do nothing else, getthem on the registry, Encourage
them to serve and get them onthe registry.
This was huge for us and thePresbytery of the Southeast we
have.
At the time we had probably 28churches with our mission works,
(24:54):
25 organized no, yeah, 25organized works and about 28,.
29 mission works.
I mean four or five missionworks to bring us up to 29,.
Maybe 30.
And we had probably I'm goingfrom memory we had 72, 73%
(25:15):
representation of volunteersfrom our own Presbytery.
We probably had, of those 25organized works, we probably had
18,.
19 of those churches hadvolunteers come from their
churches to help a fellow churchin the presbytery of the
southeast we had over 170volunteers total, many from
(25:37):
presbyteries.
Michigan, ontario was huge withthat contractor that came.
He was.
You remember him?
What was his name?
Yeah, that guy was remarkableyeah, from ohio.
Seth Long (25:50):
You know, a dynamic about having the presbytery come
to was that they were close,relatively speaking, and they
could come up for a day.
They didn't have to come for aweek or you know a lot of people
.
It's hard to get off a week,but a lot of people can get off
a day or two.
So having an active presbyteryreally enabled us to have a lot
of volunteers coming in for aday or two at a time, which was
(26:12):
a huge help, because sometimesyou really just need volunteers
for a day or two when you'redoing something.
Mike Cloy (26:18):
Yeah, yeah.
So how do we do it?
This is probably the key slide,and this is a proven model that
David taught us from hisobservations over the years, I
think even through otherdenominations.
It's the same thing we used atWilmington and New Bern when
they were hit by what was that?
Florence?
Florence, yeah, first thing wegot to do Is speak with a
(26:42):
session and a diaconate, if theyhave one, and find out what
their priorities are.
That's what we did with Sethand Jay when we went to see them
and pray on them, and then welet them know that we're going
to come alongside them as adisaster response.
Pdc and David is also, and Trishand everyone else at the
(27:04):
denominational level are goingto come alongside them, but
they're the main effort.
We're going to take our leadfrom them.
We're going to listen to whatthey want done first and when
they want it done, and thenwe're going to ask them to find
us a hospitality coordinator,someone on the ground that can
make sure those volunteers, whenthey get there, get housed and
(27:26):
that there's a means to feedthem.
We'll talk about thatuniqueness, in fact, I'll let
seth do that in a minute andthen we're going to find a
volunteer coordinator.
This person's huge.
They're the ones that receivethe hey, I want to go.
And they have to make sure thatthey're ready to go, insured,
right, they've signed therequisite forms, that they have
(27:49):
a skills assessment, thatthey're on the registry.
All that happens before theyeven get to go.
And this person's got to bestrong enough to say you can't
go, you won't sign the form.
Okay, literally, this personhas got to be able to say no.
And if they get in, you knowsomeone gets argumentative.
(28:10):
Then they just send them to me,I'll take care of it, all right
.
And then we've got to have asite coordinator, somebody
that's on the ground making surethey are listening to what the
session wants done and thebuilding of that sanctuary so we
can worship as fast as possible, and what goes first and what
goes second, what material needsto be there at the right time.
(28:31):
And he's communicating to thevolunteer coordinator saying I
need this skill set at this week, find it.
And she said I already got it,just tell me when they need to
be there.
And so it all is synchronizedon the ground.
And then these three entitiesmeet.
I think we met weekly, maybeeven a little more often at the
(28:54):
beginning, to make sure that wewere supporting those that were
on the ground and that they weretalking to each other.
Okay, and we just did thisevery day, every week, until it
was done, and at the end, oneyear later, when did you all
start worshiping in there, right?
Seth Long (29:20):
So one year, july was the flood and then that October
we were back worshiping.
It wasn't finished but we wereworshiping in the building.
A few comments about the waythis all worked out was pretty
amazing to me.
When you think about a sitecoordinator, this is all
teamwork that's happening herehas to be communication, has to
(29:43):
be people on the same page.
We had like five differentphases of site coordinators.
We didn't need one coordinatorto be there for months and
months.
My son started out.
We called him the chief muckraker and that's from the
Pilgrim's Progress, if youremember.
But his job for 30 days was tocoordinate the muck raking.
(30:05):
I mean just raking out the muckin our building and when we got
the mud out of there and it waspressure washed, we started
doing neighboring buildings inthe town with volunteers as a
witness to provide hope andbecause we had the skill and the
ability to do so, because weare a connected church, it made
(30:25):
that possible.
Jim Flanagan, a man that came,wasn't necessarily a site
coordinator, but here's a manwithin the contact list, within
our presbytery, whose career washis work was done around the
restorations of floods and firesA wealth of knowledge that
(30:47):
helped us to know what to do.
Know what to do.
Another mentioned Joe Fraughtfrom Ohio, an amazing man that
was brought at the right time.
I had a scheduled vacation inSeptember and I was pretty
determined to get away, becauseit was a pretty demanding couple
(31:07):
of months and I was afraid togo away but I needed to go away.
Joe was the right man.
This all happened in God'sprovidence that he could come
the week I was leaving and a lotof things could go wrong if you
have the wrong person on site.
He was the right man.
He was a contractor withable-bodied boys that came in
(31:31):
and provided the leadership to abig lift, was figuring out what
materials we needed to take itall the way to the trim stage.
That was a heavy lift.
I didn't have time for it.
He came in, we met with him.
He ciphered all that down, gotthe materials delivered from
Ohio into the region.
Our region was inundated.
(31:53):
It was hard to get materials.
He coordinated the materials tobe brought down and they even
gave us a discount and heprovided the leadership to get
that building.
He did a great job.
Mike Cloy (32:05):
Let me hold you there , because this is something.
This is the tension that's inthe room.
We want to do what the sessionwants done.
You got a stubborn PresbyterianDiacal Committee member who's
saying we're moving, all right,don't blink, this is going to
get done.
He's going on vacation and he'sthinking all of what we want to
(32:27):
do while I'm gone is going towait till I get back.
All right.
And I said I said I got thisguy, joe, I've been talking to
and he sounds pretty remarkable,and he said he'd come down.
Would you mind talking to him?
And the two of them met andnext thing, you know they're
walking around the building likethis.
So we're holding hands.
And he came back with a smileon his face, a touchdown, we're
good.
Seth Long (32:47):
So it's like so my career has been around working
with volunteers.
A lot of people coming in, alot of work's going to get done
in one week.
Wrong man there.
It's a disaster and it wasbeautiful how the Lord provided
I pushed back, mike pushedpeople back, but it all worked
out very well.
Lord bless the other thing.
(33:07):
I would say an HVAC contractor,presbytery, mid-atlantic or PSC
.
Mike Cloy (33:15):
That was us.
Seth Long (33:16):
That was us came in this is what he does for a
living and he replaced all theHVAC stuff in the building that
had been flooded out.
Huge help.
Another circle that could beadded to this diagram, I think,
would be like the NAPARC helpthat we received.
So David was able to let thePCA know, or they contacted him,
(33:41):
brought it down to the PDC andthey were an incredible help.
They brought some of thecoolest equipment for us to use
a stand-up skid steer that wecould get through doorways to
get the mud out and the debris.
With a big claw on you couldgrab a water heater and go out
of the building with it.
It's pretty cool.
Um, a whole pressure washingtrailer rigged up with tanks and
(34:04):
generators and intake hoses.
I mean, it was, it was.
It was a lot of money and theybrought that and parked it on
the street.
Use it for whatever you want todo.
And we pressure washed ourbuildings and probably three
other buildings during thecourse of the time that was
there Again in helping ourneighbors that were all around
(34:27):
in town, inundated, overwhelmed,without the resources that we
had at our hand.
Mike Cloy (34:33):
So Seth is continuing .
You know October we're backkind of worshiping, we're still
working it.
It gets close to December andSeth's like we need to get in
the community.
So we started getting in thecommunities in the month of
December but then we realizedit's going to be too cold to be
doing anything.
So we kind of went into atactical pause with the purpose
of in March, when we started upagain, the full effort had
(34:56):
shifted from getting the worshipspace ready to worship in,
because it was almost there, wasgetting there and we were going
into the community.
And that's when we got a newsite coordinator, a deacon,
another deacon.
We had another deacon who washelping with the inside of the
church, but then we had a deacondo ministry in the community.
You need to tell them aboutthis guy.
Seth Long (35:16):
So Mike Kelly.
First I should say that JeffDavis raise your hand.
Jeff, jeff made a couple foraysdown to Neon too and he was
instrumental in the first Shedsof Hope.
It's a PCA ministry where theyprovide in-disaster sheds for
people, because when you have adisaster like this, one of the
(35:40):
things that you have a hard timeis the stuff that you salvage.
What do you do with it?
And they have these 12 by 10sheds that they made available
24 of them for us to take to ourneighbors, people in the
community that lost everythingthey had.
And it was an opportunity forMike Kelly picked up this work,
(36:02):
a deacon from our presbytery.
He was up for months and hewould take a team of volunteers
and go put up a shed one day,and when they're putting up a
shed they were meeting with afamily.
It was a mercy ministryoutreach idea that we could
visit, establish relationshipsand then also you could go back
(36:23):
Like the shed was built.
You could go back and paintthat shed later on.
There was excuses.
You have to go back andinteract with people.
So it was really kind of anoutreach opportunity during the
storm.
Also say, mike Kelly was adeacon who spent a long time in
Neon and came to love the place.
(36:44):
The people loved him and MikeKelly has been coming back at
least a week or two everyquarter to be a deacon for us at
the church.
It's what seven hours to getthere, but he loves the people.
(37:05):
I got a call this September fromthe mayor of Neon.
He said what's that guy's namefrom North Carolina that came in
and did so much in this town?
I said you talking about MikeKelly and Sylvia.
He said what's that guy's namefrom North Carolina that came in
and did so much in this town?
I said you talking about MikeKelly and Sylvia.
He said yes.
He said we're going to honorthem publicly on stage during
our festival.
And of all people you know,somebody that came to work
(37:26):
through the church wasrecognized by the governance of
the town because he did so muchand interacted with the people
in the town.
It was beautiful, it was reallywell.
Not everybody can do that inNeon, kentucky, but Mike is a
gifted man.
Mike Cloy (37:41):
Finally, and this reminds me of Chris's devotional
when we started our conferencewe never lose sight.
The disasters can help us, helppeople, understand redemption.
Lacey Andrews will tell youthat disasters are many judgment
warnings that point to the needfor redemption.
(38:03):
And I got several years incombat and I can tell you,
having been shot at a few timesand mortared, some near death
experiences.
It makes you think about whereyou're going to be when you die.
These events, when you hear thestories of these people who
nearly passed away, and thenthose that were loved ones that
(38:25):
did, it's an opportunity tospeak of Christ because they're
vulnerable.
The lord, providentially, hasbrought suffering for a reason
in many cases to point them totheir need for him, because they
will die in their trespassesand sins if they don't.
That's all I got.
Seth Long (38:47):
My beard looks better than yours anyhow um, I guess
um, does anybody have anyquestions about the way this
operation worked or anythingabout the situation that we're
talking to?
Yes, sir.
David Nakhla (39:04):
Chair Gostin, do you have to worry?
Seth Long (39:09):
about permits and all that kind of stuff.
Mike Cloy (39:12):
Great question, that's a great security.
I said do you have to worryabout permits and all that kind
of stuff?
Great question, that's a greatquestion.
We almost came to a standstillone time remember which time was
that.
It was about the building and,uh, and being able to use it
again because of all the rulesthat may change on our damaged
building and all that.
Seth Long (39:30):
Oh, there was some floodplain issues that we had to
work through with FEMA.
We did not report this to FEMA.
We did not receive any of theFEMA funds.
We were kind of worried aboutsome of the strings that come
with those dollars and what theymay or may not require.
But in Neon Kentucky, there isno code jurisdiction.
(39:54):
There is no building permittingprocesses I see Pete there,
there's not.
I could go out and startbuilding a house on a piece of
property without pulling thefirst permit or getting anybody
to say you can or can't do that.
We just start building there inthat way.
So in that way it's very it'san unusual place to be working.
(40:16):
I think our biggest concern wasfor safety, you know, the safety
of volunteers.
That's not all mud that'slaying around there it could be
anything in that mud and justprotecting our volunteers,
making sure we kept people safeand somebody didn't catch
anything really bad.
Yes, sir, it was part of theslide, but what about logistics?
(40:38):
You touched on it, but what wasit like?
So he's asking about logistics.
So the first floor of ourchurch is where we worship,
where we eat Sunday school rooms.
The second floor are threeapartments One the pastor lives
(41:01):
in, the two other were vacant sowe use volunteers to get them
in the condition to housevolunteers on site right there,
and that was a huge in the wayof logistics.
It made things a lot easier,Logistics.
One of the big pieces ofequipment that really helped us
(41:22):
out was the commercialevaporators and fans that are in
a trailer that are owned by thePSE, pdc, and they were brought
to us.
The trailer from Michigan,ontario, was brought to us with
tools I believe that's the onethat came to us and those types
(41:42):
of logistics.
But the hard logistics really alot of work.
The hard work in a lot of thisis a volunteer coordinator
scheduling the right amount ofpeople, the right type of people
when you need them.
That's a logistical job.
That's probablyunderappreciated, but she had a
very difficult task.
That's hard work.
Mike Cloy (42:02):
Normally, usually generally, you do not want to
burden the church with a bunchof volunteers that they didn't
get to take care of.
So we can lean on David and the.
So we can lean on David and thePCA, where they have bunkhouses
, shower trailers and a bunch ofother things, if need be, and
set them up.
We had no place to do that,Remember a flood had just come
(42:23):
and so space in general was hardto find.
So it was a true blessing tohave this place above.
It did limit well, we won't getinto the word limit, but it did
limit the number of volunteersthat could come and the mixture
of male, female.
David Nakhla (42:35):
Thanks for joining us.
Go to our websitethereformedeaconorg.
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 Reformed Deacon
Podcast.
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