It has been over a week since I was able to post anything on the blog, but today I’ve finally got the time and the internet connection to do it. Since my last report, I have worked harder than I have ever worked in my life as our church has become all things to our little community. When I say “all things,” I mean: a general store, a soup kitchen, a clothing store, a gas station, a command base for work crews, a generator distributor, an internet provider, and even a helicopter landing site. Oh, and yesterday we added “local hospital” to the mix as a temporary medical facility is now set up in the churchyard.

Mushrooming. That’s what has been happening to us. Mushrooming. The simple act of one church bringing us a trailer full of supplies to distribute has now mushroomed into the conglomeration I just described in the previous paragraph. The whole operation has become so overwhelming that we’ve had to start turning down offers for more contributions. The problem is that we simply don’t have the necessary storage space.

We are having storage issues because the entire lower half of our building got flooded and is currently unusable. Thank God for a crew of 20 or so men and women who came from the North Carolina Baptist Disaster Relief organization and did a “mud out” for us. They moved out all the furniture, pulled up the soaked carpet, and cut into the walls to spray some kind of mold mitigation stuff. Considering all that we’ve had going on in other parts of our church building, I really don’t know when we would have been able to get around to doing all the work those volunteers did in two days. So, when I say, “Thank You” to each of those people, I really do mean “THANK YOU!!!”

The people in the Cane Creek area of the Mayberry-esque town of Bakersville where our church is located still don’t have power, and the word from Duke Energy is that it might be several months before they do. The rumor is that Duke is going to take this opportunity to completely rebuild the power grid in the area. If that is true, it will help the people of Cane Creek in the long term but hurt them in the short term as the colder months of the year come crashing down upon us. Thanks to recent donations from here, there, and everywhere more Cane Creekers than ever before have generators that are capable of running lights and heaters. Sadly, though, many still don’t.

As for things at my house, the power finally came back on a couple of days ago. That allowed Tonya and I to get our own flooded basement dried out by using our wet-vac. The damage was minimal except for a row of my “fat suit” jackets I had hanging down there. Moisture damage forced me to have to bag them up and take them to the recycling center. I was storing them in the basement because I figured I would need them if I ever got fat enough again to wear them. Maybe the moisture damage was God’s way of telling me to keep my weight in check.

While we are glad to have power, we still don’t have water. We live in the Spruce Pine city limits, and the rumor is that it will take four years to rebuild the town’s water system. Our local leaders are trying to get some type of temporary system in place, and hopefully they’ll be able to reach that goal, but even in a best-case scenario the job might not be completed for a couple of months. In the meantime, I made the trip down to a local creek this morning and filled six buckets with water to use to flush our toilets. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through this entire experience, it’s how much water it takes to flush a toilet!

I can, however, report another bit of good news today: I now have an internet connection at my house. That is the reason I’m able to publish this post. The connection is made possible by one of those “Starlink” systems, and with this technology in place I should be able to get back to my regular postings. That is, of course, if I can find the time to do them. I don’t know exactly what I’ll be posting yet, but I don’t think it will be any more updates regarding the aftermath of the flooding caused by Helene. Since I’m having to deal with that aftermath on a daily and nightly basis, I really don’t feel like writing about it. You can understand that, can’t you?

In regards to showering and bathing, some temporary stations have been set up in Bakersville on a site that used to be a baseball/softball field. I haven’t tried those yet but they look very nice. Tonya and I have been meeting our hygiene needs by driving an hour both ways a couple of times a week to take showers at our son Royce’s apartment. He lives in Weaverville, NC, and after a few days of having to rough it, he was fortunate enough to get his power, water, and internet restored. He says he is coming home this weekend, which is ironic because Tonya and I will be heading over to his place. I guess we’ll all just switch homes for a day.

Roan Mountain Baptist didn’t have services this past week, but we are having an eleven o’clock service this Sunday. Additionally, we’ll have a seven o’clock service this coming Wednesday night. In order for those services to happen, we’ll have to get our sanctuary cleaned out a bit because right now it is home to some overflow supplies. In particular, there are a lot of diapers in there. We’d better get them out of there before I preach because I don’t trust myself not to make a “babes in Christ” comment that probably wouldn’t be well received.

Before I forget, let me say that our church covets your prayers in regards to the major decisions we have staring us in the face. And, no, I’m not talking about what type of flooring we should use to replace our ruined carpet. I’m talking about how long we should keep trying to be all things to all people. Our workers are getting burned out with the day-to-day grind of it all, and I myself am trying to figure out where the line is that separates “Christians being the hands of feet of Christ” and “Christians trying to do jobs that are better suited to local and federal government agencies.” I mean, it’s not like there is a passage in Acts, Romans, or 1 Corinthians that walks a congregation through the process of how to do disaster relief work. We’re learning on the fly and making mistakes as we go, but our hearts are in the right place and we’re trying.

Since I seem to be in the business of passing along rumors today, another one is that our county is currently formulating a plan to use an old school building as a place where all the donated supplies that are now sitting in the Bakersville area’s schools and churches can be centralized into one place for distribution. That would free up the schools to open again and the churches to get back to some semblance of normal. Whatever “normal” is, I guarantee you that it isn’t what’s been happening since Helene blew through western North Carolina. I wonder how the apostle Paul would have felt about having a trailer filled with dog food, cat food, and livestock feed (all for free distribution) sitting in his church parking lot. If he had been forced to deal with that, we might just have another epistle in the New Testament canon.

I’m reminded of that old quote that is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, even though there is some question as to whether or not he actually said it. The quote is: “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” Well, the members of Roan Mountain Baptist Church haven’t been doing much gospel preaching by way of words the past couple of weeks, but we’ve been doing quite a bit of it by way of taking in donations, handing out donations, preparing meals, getting generators to people, and in general being a hub of relief-work activity on Cane Creek.

That makes us just one of many churches in our county and region who are currently involved in such work, and we’ll just have to wait until eternity to see how God uses it all. I have to say, though, that I figure it will make for some uncommonly wonderful rewarding at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Romans 14:10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:9-10). Jesus said, “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward” (Mark 9:41, N.K.J.V.). That being the case, I wonder what He will say about doing disaster relief work in His name. That’s got to at least be worth the equivalent of giving a cup of water.