When We Share Our Sufferings, They Get Smaller

Long-term Help After a Disaster: When We Share Our Sufferings, They Get Smaller

A year later, the man wept and wept and showed me videos that he made as he sat on his roof and watched the flood take everything away in his home. Another man showed me the video he took of his own mobile home floating down a river with all his family’s possessions lost. For him, it was still hard to watch.

One year after Hurricane Helene hit,some people who are affected have lots of community and lots of support. That’s great. But some people feel all alone. God bless six local churches in the Black Mountain who banded together to include both groups.

These local churches came together to work with Baptists on Mission to reach out to those around their church who had been helped by mission teams after the storm. Some of the people already had a strong Christian life and a church home. Others felt so far away from God and from support.

Tough mountain men still cry as they talk about the loss of their home or their valuables. Resilient women may have new flooring, but they have sometimes lost four generations of family memorabilia and precious keepsakes. So the pastors of the local churches and church leaders got together to simply provide a meal in a community space for those that were affected. More churches could still do this.

The goal was to get people from the churches together with people who were helped and don’t have a church. It worked. Some people had lost business, or shops, or parts of their house, or their entire house. There’s nothing like eating together to help bring the walls down. Baptists On Mission helped sponsor the meal.

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