Our First Full Day in Salyersville

Our First Full Day in Salyersville:

Salyersville, KY

Breakfast was served in the gym of the church where we are staying and while we were there, Terry heard about a meeting that would take place this morning with the city/county Emergency Management officials and felt strongly that he should attend.  So while I continued to set up our home office, he left to attend the meeting. It was a definitely a God Appointment for him!  While he sat quietly in the meeting listening an update by each attendee was given.  Finally, they asked him who he was and once they learned, he had incredible favor with all there!  Before he left, he met the mayor of the city, the County EM leader, and the volunteer coordinator of the Point of Distribution (POD), Lesley Arnett.  Lesley is a beautiful young woman in her 30’s that loves her community and is more interested in making sure the people affected by the storm are helped- no matter how hard it is to help them.  She is very interested in their individual needs- so much so that she has been going out into the community door to door.  Once Terry and I went by the POD to meet her, she was extremely grateful for any help we could give and more than cooperative in helping us to help her.  When we first arrived yesterday, the North Carolina Baptist Men (some had their wives) were here also- serving meals to the survivors and volunteer workers.  They have a feeding unit with all kinds of food- but I must admit, it doesn’t compare to the food that the Holy Smoker chefs Bob Ball and Rocky Fuller cranked out!  Rocky returned with Bob today and he is an AWESOME chef!  A culinary specialist- he has a heart about as big as one can get- and a vision for ministry that is just about as big. In connection with Blood n’ Fire, he is starting a school for people down on their luck that want to learn a skill and will help them to grow in the Lord as they go.  Rocky and Bob keep us laughing the whole time they are with us!

 Their last day in Salyersville is to be Tuesday, so they decided to go out in style!  Rocky and Bob are cooking pork loins, briskets, chicken breasts, bratwurst, hamburgers, ribs…you name it they have it!  Rocky is even preparing (just for his special friends) what he calls the Pork Trinity…a pork loin with andouille sausage stuffed up the middle and wrapped in bacon!  After he smokes it a while, I think he puts some special sauce on it….all I know is that it  is rumored to taste GREAT!

 While Rocky, Terry and several of the volunteers from CRI of Shiloh, NC cooked this afternoon and served the community, Bob and I drove out to a road nearby.  I had heard of this road….a short drive from where we are staying.  There were about 30 homes on it, all but one was totally destroyed or heavily damaged!  Nothing prepares you for what you will see when you enter into a tornado ravaged zone.  At least nothing had prepared me!  I was struck by all the debris that still remained.  It is more than a week after the storm came through – in fact it has been 10 days after.  This street is typical of many in Salyersville.  Almost all- if not all, of these families are related in some way- we met Mr. Jim, Sr.- as it turned out – from Muncie too!  Bob had met him earlier last week and discovered the local connection.  Mr. P had lived in Muncie more than 40 years, then moved to this area and purchased at least 4 of the homes on this road.  His sons, their families, brothers and sisters all lived here too.  That is until the storm came through.  When we arrived, it looked like a bomb had gone off and many of the homes are just shells and twisted rubble!  As Bob began to visit with him, I met Betsy; married to Jim, Jr.  They had lived in the log house across the street and a couple of doors down from his dad.  Betsy and her two young girls invited me into their house- at least what remained – so she could tell me their story and show me what was left.  They have 4 children; two teenagers and two younger girls-probably 4 or 5 and 7 or 8.  As we walked through the rooms she shared her story….the news told them a tornado was coming- but she thought she had time – she was doing laundry- just in case the electricity went out- and the two little girls were at their aunt’s house playing- just a couple of doors away.  Becky said she went out on their porch to view the weather- and noticed the really weird lightening that was green and as she contemplated going for her girls, suddenly they heard “it” coming and her husband grabbed her- against her will as she shouted, “my girls, my girls” and shoved her into their bedroom!  Just as he did and closed their bedroom door pressing his body against that door – she said ALL the glass in that side of the house exploded and the roof began to be ripped away.  When you view the home now, at least half of it no longer has a roof….and oddly enough, you don’t see it anywhere.  You do see deep pock marks in the wood paneling where the glass tore into it- and you imagine how beautiful it was before with the stained woods and where furniture might have set.  Not one given to hysteria, she said it was the first time in her life she was hysterical as she heard the storm rushing through!  Concern for her girls was overwhelming as she fought her way to the front of their home, only to realize that the house trailer that had been across the street was now perched on its side and up against the front of her home, preventing her exit! Still inside that mobile home were an aunt and uncle- miraculously uninjured!  Frantic to know of her daughter’s fate, she and her husband managed to get outside through another door!  As she made her way to the porch, her sister in law also made her way to her front porch a few doors down and screamed to her that the girls were OK!!!  Even so, it took an hour to get to their little girls due to all the debris left by the tornado in their path. 

 As Betsy shared with me, both the little girls were excitedly running through what remained of the house and pointing out things to me.  They are obviously affected by the trauma of having their home destroyed by this storm.  In the kitchen the appliances sit – waiting to be pulled and stored in hopes of using them again.  As Betsy shared her story, she told me that last year there was a big ice storm and as a result their insurance rates went up so much that they had chosen to cancel their policy…so now they had no insurance!  She said they had been thinking about renewing it- but just hadn’t done so.  It wasn’t an atypical story that she told.

As we returned home to First Baptist, we were met in the parking lot by a man and a woman, who asked me if I was with FEMA and what she needed to do to get help.  She had heard that FEMA was to set up in the fellowship hall of the church and though it was nearly 6 pm, she thought surely we must work for them.  I was able to share with her that they would be opening the office in the morning at 8 am and that she should come back.  When I took the time to ask her how she was doing, she looked at me and simply said, I am pretty good….at least I am here and alive- I thought I was going to die the other day when the storms came through.  Then she proceeded to tell me that she and her husband were under their home in the crawl space below.  At least 3 times she said the tornado picked up the whole house and sat it down; each time she thought surely she was going to die as it came back down, being crushed beneath the many tons it must have weighed.  But the Lord was with her and she was safe and uninjured!  To one who had come so close to life’s end, she was just happy to be among the living.

 Hearing these stories today has left me with a tremendous heart of gratitude for the knowledge that the Lord is watching over His children…that there were no fatalities in this small community and a deeper understanding of how our lives can turn on a dime. 

 I am grateful to be here in this community and to be able to serve these people who have been through so much!