Despite Flood, Convoy of Hope Helps Church Reach Out
As they stood in the muddy parking lot of their flooded and unusable church building, Pastor Don Andreasen, and his congregation of the Columbus First Assembly of God, in Columbus, Indiana, sang, prayed and made plans to help the hurting people of their community who had just lost their possessions to record flooding.
Over the weekend of June 8, the south central portion of Indiana received record amounts of rainfall, as much as 10 to 11 inches in just 10 hours. The city of Columbus, with its 39,000 residents, found itself immersed in floodwaters. The total number of damaged homes is still unknown. Adding insult to injury, rain continues to fall and remains in the forecast. Flooding is expected to continue for the next few weeks.
Convoy of Hope U.S. Disaster Response immediately responded with offers of help. An assessment team has been on the ground in Columbus since Tuesday night, and two 18-wheelers have delivered 80,000 lbs. of relief supplies, including water, PowerAde, Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), cleaning supplies, and paper products.
Convoy of Hope ihas also been organizing volunteer teams to come to Columbus to help with distribution of the product at a drive-through point of distribution (POD) site at Columbus First Assembly as well as door-to-door in the hardest-hit areas.
“The flooding is widespread,” said Paul Coroleuski, associate director for Convoy of Hope USDR. “People are telling me ‘We just don’t know what to do, where to get help, where to start.’”
Those feelings of bewilderment were shared by Pastor Andreasen. Despite their own needs, he knew that it was more important for his church to reach out and help his community.
“At first we thought, ‘How can we do anything to help others when our own church is so damaged?’” said Andreasen. “But then Convoy of Hope brought us supplies and the needed volunteers to help us help others.... this is bigger than us, but with the help of God and Convoy of Hope, we will make it through all this and touch the lives of others in our community.”
You can help! You can impact hurting people. Donate to our U.S. Disaster Relief Fund today—your gift will be used for this and other U.S. Disaster Response efforts. Through our corporate partnerships, every donated $1 can be converted to $5-8 of relief product that actually reaches people in need. If you have questions about this or other disaster responses, please contact the Convoy of Hope USDR team.