“No words can truly describe how grateful we are to have our family and the support, generosity, and prayers from friends, family, and complete strangers. When this happened I felt alone and overwhelmed, and now I know I am not alone…”
SCA field rep Mark Roye received this note from a young widow he was able to bless with gift cards during his assessment trip to North Carolina this week. She also shared a praise report that gave her family hope in this trying time.
The family lost their home in a fire caused when a tree fell on the home and caused an electrical short. “The fire inspector who was at the house yesterday found a box in my daughter’s room, completely untouched by the fire, that contained some pictures of her dad who passed away and his bottles of cologne. What is amazing about this is the floor and everything around this box was gone. And yet this box was untouched and unharmed by the fire or the water from the fire trucks. A true blessing.”
Thanks to support from our partners and donors, we have been able to impact many lives in North Carolina by empowering local churches who are reaching out to their neighbors. These testimonies are from Vertical Church in Elizabethtown:
- John lost his income from a construction job because the project flooded. He also lost everything he owned in the flood. He has struggled with drugs and has been trying to stay clean, but was so discouraged he headed to his dealer’s house. It was also flooded, and he could not get there. A kind woman saw him on the road and offered to take him to Vertical Church to see if they could help. After hearing his story, Vertical Church was able to get him the last bed at a drug recovery center and took him to Wal-Mart on the way there to buy him new clothes using gift cards from SCA.
- The Department of Social Services heard there was a distribution center at the church and sent over a family with four children. The father could not get to work because of the flooding; with no paycheck, they were barely getting by. They had lost all the food in their refrigerator, but the church was able to serve them their first hot meal in a week along with $100 in gift cards to help them restock. They left with tears of gratitude.
- A local bank president came by looking for some stopgap to help while waiting for insurance funds. He too lost everything in the refrigerator and was given a gift card to help until he gets some funds. He too was so grateful!
- One of the pastors took gift cards to the Department of Social Services, where he worked with DSS employees to identify others needing help. They were able to distribute the rest of the gift cards to families who were flooded and had a variety of special needs—from filling up their gas tanks to getting medication, to purchasing clothes and other items. The church also gave DSS a card with the number for their prayer line if people need prayer now or in the future.
With power back on in most areas, muck-out teams from our partners working in New Bern and Wilmington are helping with clean-up and repairs. SCA sent a 16’ trailer filled with generators, cleaning supplies, non-perishable food, tools, and dust masks to help CRI, our partner in Wilmington, and Night Runners, our partner in the Lumberton area. We have also supplied shop vacs, fans, portable air conditioning units, bleach, tools, and cleaning kits.
Yet even as these areas are transitioning from crisis relief to clean-up and recovery, other locations in North Carolina are still under water. SCA is partnering with Vertical Church to help the nearby community of Reagan, which has been under four feet of water for over 11 days. Communities in South Carolina are experiencing new flooding from overflowing rivers. The death toll from Florence now stands at 48.
Please continue to pray for the people affected by Hurricane Florence. Your gift toward the ongoing relief efforts will help us continue helping those who have suffered such tremendous loss.
Thank you for caring!