Mercy Relief in the midst of Tragedy

Only the foundation is left at this home after the Tornado went through rural Arkansas south of Franklin.

“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’” (Matt. 25:40) On the night of March 14, nine tornadoes streaked across Northeast Arkansas (including 2 F4 and 2 FE), hitting communities all over.  While members are safe and property damage very minimal, thousands of people situated between the congregations of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Horseshoe Bend and Hope Lutheran Church in Batesville have been affected.  Houses completely gone like the house above.

Member’s driveway covered with trees from Tornado.

The communities came together very quickly to help their neighbors.  By midmorning, roads were clear of debris and the lineman were hard at work restoring power.  The members at Hope responded to one member’s house where a dozen trees had fallen across his driveway (the tornado missed their home by not more than 200 yards).  Because of the quick response, the power company was also able to come in and restore power to their home that afternoon.

Some of the Hope Lutheran Church members who helped the first day.

The challenge of natural disasters in rural America is the limited resources to manage volunteers and donations.   Men and women of the communities volunteered to coordinate the relief and the massive influx of help that poured in immediately.  They worked 12+ hours every day providing generously of their time as they cared for their fellow neighbors.

Mid-South District LERT responded immediately with sending our DDRC, Kurt Ludwig, on Monday, who went right to work finding homes in need of help.  Kurt and I traveled to the small towns of rural Arkansas making contacts.  Starting on March 24^th LERT teams will come to Hope Lutheran Church to help in the clean-up, especially the rural areas of the small town of Cushman.

While Kurt and I were out, we were spotted by a couple of men in Cave City who saw Kurt’s vehicle with the LERT logo and the LCMS cross on it.  Three men from Grace Celebration Lutheran Church in Cordova, TN had come up with a group on Monday.  They are part of group called Operation BBQ Relief (OBR) and have been providing thousands of meals to people in the Cave City area each day.  We had the opportunity to visit with Steve Carney.  (Dale Collins and Ivan Bost were out serving meals while we visited with him.)  Their church runs a local group called Holy Smokers who serve their community delivering food to the needy.  These men have also joined OBR who travel all over the US serving in disaster relief.  Part of their group even went out to California to help with the fires.  They served over a million meals last year!

This was a great reminder that the men and women of our churches serve the Lord in a variety of ways, both in organizations and individually.  They do so, rejoicing in the gift of salvation freely won for us by Christ.  It reminds me of our Gospel text from Ash Wednesday, “When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”  (Matt. 6:3)

Every member has the opportunity to serve their neighbor around them and we do it not for the recognition but because the Lord has prepared beforehand works for us to do (Eph. 2:10) since the faith that we have received drives us to works (James 2:17ff).  Steve, Dale, Ivan and members at Hope don’t do this for publicity, but from a servant’s heart, not even realizing how precious is the work of God’s people in the eyes of those who are suffering (Matt 25:31ff).  I cannot help but give thanks for these men and the members of my church who are helping in many unknown ways. Such generosity is truly a blessed gift as we love our neighbor who suffers and will need help in the coming months.