Thousands of North Carolina residents look to local church for supplies, prayer: 'People are broken'
'This storm is bringing our community together in a way that I've not seen in a long time'
HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — A member of a local church assisting residents with disaster relief efforts by distributing basic supplies in the wake of Hurricane Helene's destruction said the crisis has left the community broken but united.
"I was hearing story after story; people are broken," Kristi Brown of First Baptist Church in Hendersonville told The Christian Post on Monday. “It was incredible what I heard today.”
According to a video that senior pastor Justin Alexander posted on Facebook, about 5,000 people in the town of approximately 15,000 drove through the church's parking lot, which is 25 miles south of Asheville. The area has drawn national attention as the epicenter of the devastation that has ravaged the region and wiped entire communities off the map.
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'It's so overwhelming'
Brown, who serves as executive director of the Ascend Women's Center in Asheville, is no stranger to crisis. Her crisis pregnancy center in West Asheville made headlines in 2022 when it was among those vandalized by members of the radical Antifa-affiliated group Jane's Revenge, who shattered the center's windows and spray-painted the building with threatening graffiti.
She was among about 100 volunteers and staff at the church dispensing food, water and basic hygiene products to residents from about 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday. Volunteers also ministered to their spiritual needs, and Brown singled out several harrowing stories from locals she prayed with that "blew her away."
One woman whose house and shed were crushed by fallen trees told Brown she's had no contact with one family member since last Friday when the storm hit, leaving the area without power, internet or gas for days. Dead bodies have reportedly been found in trees, and more than 1,000 people remain unaccounted for, according to the New York Post.
“I found when I would ask people to pray about stuff, they would tell me some things to pray about: their home, a missing loved one, whatever the need,” Brown said. "But they all were saying, 'I just don't know what to do with this.'"
One young mother told Brown she was rattled as her husband was helping remove the hundreds of downed trees from the roads and noted she wouldn't have been able to feed her infant if she hadn't had the forethought to sanitize 25 baby bottles before the storm. She had gotten down to her last bottle of water by the time she got to the church.
“She started crying when I first started speaking to her,” Brown said. "She said, 'It's so overwhelming.'"
"I just kept hearing that nobody was prepared for this," Brown added.
Brown said most people attempted to smile and keep up good spirits, though one woman was honest and told her she was "really struggling."
"After I prayed with her, she just reached her arms up — I didn't know her, never met her in my life — she said, 'Can I hug you?' I said absolutely. So we just hugged through the car window, and she just embraced me, would not let go and she was sobbing in her car."
Even if their house was spared, Brown said many are straining beneath the trauma of witnessing the shocking scale of devastation in their community.
"People right now just need people to care and love them, and let them know it's going to be OK," she added. "But I share all that to share the brokenness that's going on right now."
'Blessings in this storm'
Despite the widespread suffering, Brown remains hopeful and said there's "absolutely" an opportunity for the Gospel amid the darkness.
“That's why we were asking people if we could pray with them today: to give them spiritual hope in the midst of all this crisis and devastation,” she said.
"As we were praying with them and giving them food, water, all the things they needed, we were just letting them know that there is a hope and there is a peace. None of this caught God off guard. Even though we're all caught off guard with it, He's still going to provide all the needs that everybody needs, so we were trying to give them that spiritual hope today."
Brown, who said she is struggling herself, urged Christians to pray urgently for the restoration of the region's critical infrastructure and for the mental well-being of residents who will need patience as they come to realize "this is going to take years, not weeks, to recover from."
“People right now don't even know where to turn for the basics,” she said. "We probably need mental health professionals in here, because everyone's going to probably have some PTSD from this. People are hurting, but they need to know people care."
“It's not that I doubt God or His sovereignty; it's just I'm struggling with so much loss and destruction,” she added. “How do people come back from this?”
Neighboring Asheville is a liberal city in an otherwise deep-red part of North Carolina, but Brown believes the crisis has managed to unite an otherwise divided area in a fractured nation. She noted locals could not wait on the federal or state response and had to jump into action to take care of each other.
“I'm trying to find the blessings in this storm,” she said. "This storm is bringing our community together in a way that I've not seen in a long time. I think nationwide, our community has been divided in this whole political season that we're in. But now people are helping people."
"So a blessing is, I think, the unity that's formed because we're all in crisis together," she added.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to [email protected]
