 News April 2 Update: Our ice storm response has now finished in Louisiana. Our work in Mississippi will be ending soon (currently scheduled to complete on April 10). Check spovolunteer.org for more information.
March 26: Samaritan’s Purse volunteers are still hard at work in Louisiana and Mississippi after late-January ice storms left communities with a mess of fallen trees and damaged homes.
While our relief work in Tennessee has closed, many more volunteers are still needed to serve hundreds of homeowners in devastated parts of West Monroe, Louisiana, and in the hard-hit Mississippi communities of Corinth, Oxford, and New Albany.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done, and we need more volunteers to come alongside us and serve this community,” said Jason Kimak, the vice president of our U.S. Disaster Relief Programs. “As we serve, we’re sharing the love and hope of Jesus Christ and reminding people that they have not been forgotten.”
VOLUNTEER: MISSISSIPPI
To date, our volunteers have served more than 3,300 families during this ice storm response and 144 individuals have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Hundreds of homeowners still need help.
We praise God for the volunteers who’ve helped in this ongoing effort, including a group of students in Louisiana who joined our work to help fellow residents of the Bayou State. These young volunteers experienced the unique opportunity our teams have to show God’s love and share the hope of the Gospel with homeowners after disaster strikes.
“Spreading love can be through your voice or through what you’re able to do, but showing Jesus’ love is just being His hands and feet more than anything,” said Lindsay, a student volunteer who joined the 14-member team of youth from Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, Louisiana. “The easiest way of showing someone that I care is by showing them that I am willing to take the time out of my day for you. We are doing something that is going to matter.”
Lindsay and the group from Cypress Baptist met homeowner Patricia Neal who said she’s never seen a storm like that in her 78 years in Monroe, Louisiana. The winter storm bore down on her community leaving layers of thick ice, causing a frenzy of snapping limbs in the peaceful canopy of trees around her house.
Blessed By the Younger Generation
“You could hear the limbs around here go, ‘CRACK! BAM! BAM!’ They were hitting the house and I just prayed,” Patricia said. A tree uprooted nearby and a large oak to the right of her home scattered large limbs across the yard. She takes pride in her property where she’s lived since 1971 but felt hopeless that help would ever come to restore it.
“I asked God to send me help,” Patricia said. “He did: Samaritan’s Purse.”
The group of students from Cypress Baptist Church spent a Saturday at Patricia’s home and other homes across the town. They hauled entire tree trunks and removed broken limbs that had been scattered across yards.
“I don’t ever do this stuff, so I was a little bit nervous because I am not qualified, but now that I am doing it, it’s fun!” said another student named Brylee. “I’m out of my comfort zone and it’s something different that I don’t typically get to do.”
After completing their work at Patricia’s home, the students and other volunteers filled Patricia’s living room where they joined hands in a circle to pray. They also presented her with a special Billy Graham Training Center Bible signed by each volunteer. Patricia says she’ll read it each time she sits down in her armchair.
“I feel blessed. There’s no other word for it but blessed,” Patricia said. “I’m stunned that there are so many young ones. That’s what really got me. I don’t know why I doubted because He’s done it for me before. Oh, hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!”
Partnering with Student Leadership University
For Wesley, a senior who will study apologetics and theology at Liberty University starting this fall semester, volunteering with Samaritan’s Purse in Louisiana was a way to put his faith into action.
SIGN UP TO SERVE IN JESUS’ NAME
“I’ve done missions trips, but I’ve never done something where it’s just about being the hands and feet of Jesus, and that’s it,” Wesley said. “It’s encouraging to serve the Lord, but it’s all about serving because God has called us to love those around us.”
Wesley and his fellow students are also planning to join Student Leadership University, a ministry partner with Samaritan’s Purse that seeks to equip students to become Christian leaders in their schools, communities, and around the world.
Through Samaritan’s Purse disaster relief responses, SLU hopes to give their students an opportunity to lead as Jesus did: by serving others.
“The thing we love about Samaritan's Purse is that they are taking the Gospel to the four corners of the globe and ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to experience Scripture,” said Jeff Wallace, the chief strategic officer with SLU who also donned an orange shirt to work alongside the students. “And we love our partnership with them because it gives us an opportunity not just to teach our students about leadership, but also to give them an opportunity to be mobilized to be the hands and feet of Jesus.”
Cypress Baptist student pastor Jacob Linder is a graduate of SLU and wants other young people in the program to volunteer with Samaritan’s Purse in future disaster responses.
“One of the cool things about Jesus and His ministry is that He would meet people’s physical need and then meet their spiritual needs,” he said. “Come, be a part of what Samaritan’s Purse is doing. It allows you to flex the leadership muscle that God has given you.”
Faith Working through Love
Leading the group of students was no ordinary couple. Yolanda and Miguel Gomez, site leaders with our U.S. Disaster Relief Programs, know that it’s the Lord who put them where they are today.
Miguel served in the Unites States Marine Corps for over 21 years, and he and Yolanda felt the emotional toll of deployments on their marriage.
“My husband left but a different husband came back,” she said.
The Gomezes signed up for Operation Heal Our Patriots, a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse that provides a Biblically based marriage program in Alaska where veterans and their spouses can experience healing and refuge in the Lord. Miguel accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in Alaska, was baptized by our chaplains, and the couple rededicated their marriage to God.
“Our foundation is now Christ. That’s why we’re out here doing this because what else would we do?” Yolanda said as they now lead volunteer teams. “We come out here because this is where the Lord sends us.”
Employing leadership skills honed by decades in the military, Miguel is grateful that he gets to organize volunteer teams to help homeowners after disasters with Galatians 5:6, “faith working through love,” as a driving truth behind his work.
“This is how I worship the Lord,” Miguel said. “Operation Heal Our Patriots was a huge eye-opener to how I was failing as a leader of my household. It’s not that these works make me more favored by the Lord. Rather doing this is my response to Jesus.”
Please pray for families still recovering as we continue to work in communities in Louisiana and Mississippi. Please prayerfully consider serving with Samaritan’s Purse in these hard-hit areas, helping hurting residents in Jesus’ Name and serving as His hands and feet. Visit spvolunteer.org to sign up to volunteer today.
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