Hurricane Helene and Voices from NC Broadcasters

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

We are located in Greenville, SC and over 90% of this area is still without power and very limited cell/data service. It's a mess out there with downed trees, long gas lines, and long grocery lines. When literal storms or storms of life hit us hard, the first thing to go is our time with God -- reading, praying, worship. Christianity is not a luxury religion. Something that can be tossed aside until we "have more time." It is a wartime religion, a religion of the storms.

God is speaking to us. Is anyone listening?

Feedback from NC Broadcasters.

We spent all last week calling the broadcasters affected by the storm to check up on them, encourage them, and gather feedback. We were able to pray for some of these at our last staff meeting and I trust this compilation of feedback will be helpful for you to reach out and be an encouragement to them yourselves.

"We are coordinating distribution of food and supplies in our church parking lot as we speak! Towns around us were devastated, we were spared, many people still without power and cell service, hope to be preaching on Sunday! We will send a picture of our relief efforts to the community as we can. Bless you for calling."

Bible Baptist Waynesville
Pastor David Reed | Waynesville, North Carolina

"It is really devastating up here, especially west of where I live.  We were spared the worst of the hurricane but we have a sister church that lost its sanctuary and most of its parsonage. We plan to offer them one of our buildings for worship services until they can get back on their feet. We have people in our association that are bringing in supplies and we are serving as a distribution point to people in our community. We learned that a Christian man who owns three McDonalds in the Spartanburg areas is sending three truckloads of supplies to us for distribution! Thank you for your concern and care for us."

Going Home Free Will Baptist Church
Jeff Duncan | Marion, North Carolina

"We were dead center in the path of the hurricane. We received 20 inches of rain in 24 hours. There were extensive flooding and many of our members are dealing with flooding in  their homes, but thankfully there was no major damage to our church or to any other property. Our church building is the only building in our community with power so our ladies are preparing soup and chili to hand out to those in our community. We want to encourage and bless our community at this time. Some folks have said to me, "I wonder if God is trying to get our attention!" This morning, I was reading in Psalm 18 and reminded of God's constant love for me. We are thankful for His care for us in this time."

Heady Mountain Baptist Church
Pastor Joshua Holden | Cashiers, North Carolina

"Thanks for reaching out to us! Things are awful in our community. I have never seen anything like it. However, our church of 700 people is doing very well. We had no loss of life or injury. We have three buildings on our property and only one sustained some minor damage. Sister churches are sending truckloads of supplies so we can help those in need and we are gearing up for some outreach. We are praying for revival! People need the Lord here!"

Pleasant Hill Baptist Church
Keith E. Watkins | Weaverville, North Carolina

"Our church family is safe with no loss of life and everyone being accounted for at this time. We ask specifically for prayers for wisdom. Our location is ideal for truckloads of supplies to arrive and serve as a staging area to reach many communities in the mountains and in rural areas. We have multiple churches reaching out to us and ready to bring us everything we need. There are some people in real need such as mothers with babies who are out of diapers and supplies.

What God is doing in the mountain churches here is amazing. These are small churches of less than 100 people but what they are doing is mind-blowing and they are reaching people in incredible ways that even the local agencies cannot do. Our prayer is that we are salt and light. The "Asheville" effect has produced a lot of spiritual darkness in Western North Carolina and we are praying for a mighty work of God during this time. PRAY for us and with us!"

Progress Baptist Church
Doug Raynes | Hendersonville, North Carolina

"Thank you for reaching out. To be honest we are hurting. There is much devastation in our area. Communication is very difficult if not impossible. Our main church campus has some damage our secondary church campus was flooded. We are 100% in recovery mode. Prayer requests: We could use a second generator, fans and dehumidifiers. We need roofing repair we need tree removal. We are having trouble finding anyone who could help us with these things. Pray for cell service to keep working. Pray for power to be restored. Pray for God to give us the grace and strength we need for the days ahead."

Grace Baptist Church
Jeff Hawkey | East Flat Rock, North Carolina

"Thank you so much for calling. I was very glad to hear from you. We are doing OK here. Most of us don't have power or water in our homes. Our church building has water but no power. We are seeing signs of progress each day. Right now our church is gearing up to become a distribution center for some supplies within our community. We have some teams coming in that will stay at the church and we have some trucks with supplies coming this week and next week. I really appreciate your concern and thank you for your prayers. If anyone is interested in helping out, let me know that. Some folks are working with some from Bob Jones University to come up and help us with the truck supplies. God has been very good and kind to us. I have been very encouraged."

Cornerstone Baptist Church
Dan Smetana | Arden, North Carolina

"Thank you for reaching out to us. Our church was not affected by the storm. We lost power was our only inconvenience. None of our church members had any storm or water damage. We have some trees down at our house in Morganton but no damage to our houses."

Bible Believers Baptist Church
Dr. Mike Wheeler | Canton, North Carolina

"Our church is doing OK. All of our members are accounted for at this time but some have lost homes or had significant damage to their property.  Six different groups are using our church to stay and serve in our community. Some are involved in recovery efforts still. Whole communities within just a few minutes of our church  have significant devastation. We are thankful that our church facilities suffered no damage. Thank you for your prayers and standing with us at this time."

Trinity Baptist Church
Winston Parrish | Asheville, North Carolina

"We have had many people respond and bring lots needed food and supplies for people in our church and community. One of our members lives in an area that was hit really hard and many of our members have had trees fall on their homes. Please pray for many who want to get back into their homes. Thank you for calling. Thank you so much for thinking about us! We appreciate it so much!"

Boiling Springs Baptist Church
Pastor Phillip Luther | Fletcher, North Carolina

"Thank you, thank you, thank you to the SermonAudio team. Your prayers and generosity are absolutely felt!. Our church and community have been especially struck with loss of life and damage. Please be praying that the saints of FCF can continue to be sustained in our distributing of resources and our sharing some good news to downtrodden hearts."

Fairview Christian Fellowship (PCA)
Trevor Allen | Fairview, North Carolina

"As a church we are doing OK. All of our members are doing well though some have lost loved ones as a result of the hurricane. We still have some people in our community who are unaccounted for and missing. We thank God that there was no damage to our church. We thank you for your concern."

Fletcher First Baptist Church
Roy Waldroup | Fletcher, North Carolina

This broadcaster was not affected beyond loss of power. No flooding. Says there is a lot of devastation and loss of life in Marion, NC and McDowell County.

Broad River Baptist Church
Pastor David C. Anderson | Rutherfordton, North Carolina

"Hurricane Helena was quite an experience here but our community is slowly getting back on its feet. We had no damage to our church building though several members had some damage to their homes and a lot of fallen trees to deal with. We are helping our members, especially with the clean up after the storm. Our church had power restored Saturday evening so we were able to worship together on Sunday. Pray for one of our sister churches, Chestnut Hill Baptist Church in the Fairview, NC area. They lost 15 church members during the Hurricane."

Fellowship Baptist Church
Aaron Pryor | Hendersonville, North Carolina

"My name is Trevor Allen, I am the pastor of Fairview Christian Fellowship. We are a small revitalization that has gone from 25 to 91 and we host our sermons on SermonAudio. We were directly in the path of Helene here in the mountains of Western North Carolina. For the past month our church has become a distribution site and overnight shelter. We have given away thousands of pounds of food and supplies, we have prayed with hundreds of people who have lost loved ones, we have cut up countless trees, removed muck from homes, and done about a million other things. The Lord has used us in a special way even in the midst of our own pain and suffering - people are hungry for something lasting, a beauty that can't be wiped away with rain and mudslides, so we point them to Jesus. My house had a huge oak tree fall through it with my family in the living room and all the roads in my neighborhood mostly all destroyed. We are tired, and weary, yet there is still much to do."

Fairview Christian Fellowship (PCA)
Trevor Allen | Fairview, North Carolina

The Vault was without power as well.

As far as The Vault is concerned, we also lost power for a few days. We had to therefore switch full operations over to the cloud, which we would rather not have to do. Last week, we started down the road of setting up VAULT#2 in a separate location. We still have a great deal more work to do, but having multiple sites would definitely go a long way in making it possible for us to keep the site up and running with full redundancy in such situations.

Please consider helping us as we continue to build out The Vault which includes a Vault Network of multiple sites around the world.

Learn more here:
www.sermonaudio.com/vault

The Vault was completely down due to the storms.

A week prior, we sent up a small team to another location far from Greenville, SC in order to begin the process of setting up VAULT#2 which will greatly assist us with redundancy in such situations.

Prayer talk brought on Day #1225 after the hurricane.

I invite you to take a listen to the prayer talk brought at our prayer meeting with some thoughts and lessons learned from Hurricane Helene. Many are still struggling to return to normal life. But do we really want to return to "normal?"