Nashville Flood Relief

On Saturday, May 8, a group from our congregation went to Nashville to be a part of disaster relief for flood victims. We were able to help several families. Most of our time was spent in their crawl spaces pulling out insulation soaked with flood water.

Many stories were shared. One family told of their financial situation. They were not “mortgage poor,” as they called it. They plan to rebuild just one room, and live in that room while they rebuild the rest of the house. They feel that they can afford their initial mortgage and their additional loan to rebuild if they can qualify for a FEMA loan.
Down the street, another volunteer was sitting in the yard underneath a tree pulling pictures apart. The homeowners were inside doing the “dirty” work, but what they valued more than any property inside their home was their pictures. While piles of insulation, furniture, and ruined appliances lay at the street awaiting pick-up, pictures with curled edges lay drying out in the sun.
Another family we assisted had a contract to sell their home. They were scheduled to close on May 11. The gentlemen stated how glad he was that this didn’t happen to the new owners. He would have felt awful if they had closed on their original closing date of April 30, only to have the new owners lose their home the weekend after closing on it. He would forfeit the earnest money that he had put down on his new home, but he didn’t care about that. He showed us a house a few doors down where his neighbors drowned trying to get out, and also pointed out another house that some of his friends owned who had moved here after having lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.
As we were preparing for the trip, we knew that we would come back changed. While the view was devastating, the spirit was encouraging. Strangers were going out of their way to help another stranger. The human spirit and the volunteer spirit are strong, and were evident that day. The people of Nashville will need our help in the coming weeks and months. We look forward to our next trip to Nashville to provide ongoing assistance, and hold in our hearts Luke 22:27 “I am among you as one who serves.”