CCM Disaster Response to Rogers, Arkansas from 7-21 through 7-28-2024

This is a summary of Billy Graham Rapid Response Team Chaplaincy deployment to Rogers, Arkansas from 7-21 through 7-28-2024

I was asked to deploy to Northwest Arkansas for a tornado response and when I signed up, I realized that this was the area of Northwest Arkansas where Pastor Paul Lester had planted a church, (Calvary Chapel of the Ozarks) which continues to thrive today. I had intended to visit that church, and to visit folks in the area that both Pastor Paul and I know, but the hours of ministry for the Chaplains are 7 days a week from 6am to 8pm….so, alas, I was only able to visit Pastor Paul’s favorite Coffee House on the evening of my arrival. (I was otherwise engaged in ministry or essentially asleep!) But I wouldn’t trade the experiences for anything…it is a great privilege to serve!

The Chaplain’s day is full…full of ministry to homeowners impacted by the disaster; full of ministry to Samaritan’s Purse Volunteers, or to others when we do what is called “ministry on the way”…those times where God orchestrates connections with folks that are not “part of the plan”. We had many instances where this occurred, as it should. During this entire deployment, Proverbs 16:9 kept rolling around in my mind: “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” In this, we had several incidences that God led us into where the person we ended up ministering to was not the person we had planned to be with, yet God touched the person’s heart, allowing us to minister….and in the case of John (who I will write about later), came to faith in Christ as a result.

The Tornado in question was part of a severe weather system that struck across multiple states on May 25^th, 2024 causing significant damage, injuries, and some loss of life (but no loss of life in the area of Rogers, Arkansas). Numerous homes and structures were damaged with extremely large amounts of tree and debris damage. In the area of Rogers, the large trees that fell during the storm caused most of the damage. Samaritan’s Purse was very busy, tarping damaged roofs and cutting up trees that were on people’s homes or where threatening people’s homes. They had accepted over 1,000 work orders to date when I was there and had completed all but about 100 of those.

We were able to meet with several homeowners each day as Chaplains to provide emotional and spiritual care. Samaritan’s Purse teams work on the property, and the Chaplains visit with the homeowners to see how they are holding up after this traumatic event. The Lord is always faithful to open up opportunities for the chaplains to pray with people, to provide encouraging words from The Lord, to provide reassurance of salvation to some, to provide opportunity for some to rededicate their lives to The Lord, and also for people to come to a saving faith in Christ.  We had 4 Chaplains on this particular deployment— myself and a co-chaplain from Michigan, and then a husband and wife chaplain team from Ohio. All of us were experienced, with my co-chaplain and myself having 10+ years under our belt. The experience levels made for a smooth running operation, and I know our Chaplain Coordinator appreciated the fact that we all were pretty well versed in how everything is done, so he did not have to spend a lot of time assigning work; he could be freed up to minister himself (he was bilingual…and his Spanish was put to work on several occasions). And our team of chaplains had the incredible privilege of praying with 6 individuals that week to place their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation!

So, I will share here 3 of the stories involving folks that my co-chaplain and I ministered to.

I will write first about our visit with Marissa. We went to her house because she had work done by Samaritan’s Purse, but the Chaplains did not have the opportunity to visit her at that time. (we call these visits “follow ups”). She related to us an incredible story concerning her life and how God has been there for her all along. She was wild and rebellious as a child and a young woman, living in Georgia. She lived a really wildlife from her very early teens until her middle 20’s, getting in fights often…physically…. with men and women while immersed in a drug addicted life that also included the regular abuse of alcohol. Because of this violent lifestyle, she ended up in prison for a period of time and when she got out she met a man who had also been in prison, marrying him. They had two boys together, and then that marriage ended because of the husband’s verbal and violent physical abuse, both against her and the two boys. During that time of marriage, she and her husband continued to live the wildlife of drug and alcohol abuse, and fought often, both verbally and physically. Things kind of came to a head when she became involved in yet another violent altercation with another woman, and that woman pulled a gun on her and pointed it at her, and Marissa screamed at the lady, telling her to go ahead and shoot her, exclaiming “I don’t care anymore!” Then the woman made several attempts to fire the gun, it would not fire. Marissa then realized at that moment that God had spared her life. After this incident, she made a commitment to Jesus Christ to follow Him and as a single mom with two boys moved to her present location where we were visiting her. She was able to purchase the land that she’s living on and an older manufactured home by way of a note graciously carried by the previous owner on the land. She is making payments on the land now, and she is living with her boys there. In the meantime, after all that struggle, coming out of that old life, she had kidney disease to the point that she had to have a kidney transplant. That was 3 or 4 years ago, and that transplant involved prescribed long periods of therapy. But, as soon as she came out of the anesthesia, she told the doctors and nurses and everybody else that God had spoken to her that she had been made completely well. They all thanked her for having faith and trust in them and the procedure and so forth and so on…. but then she demonstrated the fact that she was completely healed by The Lord because she didn’t have to go through all the therapy and all the different treatments that usually would follow a transplant. That kidney took perfectly, and it has functioned perfectly since that time, and she really believes God did it. She also believes that God delivered her from her own self will and that violent temper. She also believes that God did all of this to prepare her for future ministry to women who struggle with such things. She is convinced that God will provide for such a ministry there on this property, according to His timing and His financial provision. She feels that God has called her to pioneer a ministry through her to women who have been physically abused, or whom also suffer from this propensity toward violent behavior. She believes that God wants to provide a place where these women can get away from their abusive situations and live temporarily in a transitional place so they can get their life back together. She is also convinced that God opened the door for the land to be purchased for this purpose, and by faith is trusting God for the details and the provision for such a ministry.  She really has no idea where the money is going to come from to fund this ministry; she doesn’t know exactly when she will start doing it, but she knows she is supposed to. She has an amazingly resilient faith that has been developed by the Lord through His granting her the ability to overcome great adversity in her life, and she views this whole sequence of events surrounding the tornado as part of that equipping. The tornado passed within several feet of her home and she prayed that none of these very large trees surrounding her home would fall on her house because she knew that if any of those trees fell on it, that would be the end of that house (manufactured homes do not do well when large trees land on them!) She knew that she did not have the money or resources to replace this home, and was not so sure that the insurance company would adequately cover it. So, she prayed to the Lord and asked Him if He would please have any trees that fall not hit her home. And then, miraculously, several very large trees near her home did fall in the storm, but every one of them landed parallel to it, not on it. (one tree slightly clipped one corner of her house, but she has been told that repairing that damage is not an issue). After the storm had left and it was safe to come outside, she looked at all of those very large trees strewn about her property, and she kind of panicked…not knowing how they could ever be cleared away. But, at her church, she heard about Samaritan’s Purse and the help that they offered at no charge, and once again saw that as God’s provision for her life. Now, just before the tornado actually came through the area of her home, her neighbor right up the road called her in a panic, and pleaded with her to come to her place because she was dreadfully afraid of what might happen (this woman had been through a tornado before in her life when she was living somewhere else…and was basically  in the middle of a PTSD episode.) So, Marissa grabbed her boys and her cat, jumped in her car and headed over to that neighbor’s place. When she arrived, she rushed in, yelling at her two boys to get out and come into that house. They came in, she comforted her neighbor for just a moment, and she heard a voice in her head (the Lord) saying “get your cat now!”…so she ran back out and grabbed her cat out of her car, and while she was headed back in, a very large tree fell right behind her and landed right on top of her car, completely crushing it. She knew, once again, that God had intervened and spared her life, the life of her beloved cat, and the lives of her two boys. She has had so many other incidences in her life where God has shown himself strong on her behalf, and space here does not allow the retelling of them all. Let me just share one more testimony of God’s provision in her life concerning her car. That car that was crushed by that tree in front of her neighbor’s house, was a car that God had provided by way of generous donation by her church family. She had a car when she moved there, but when the engine blew, she knew she could not afford to fix it. She let the need be known, and then God touched the hearts of the people in her church to provide that car that was now history. So…..she prayed to the Lord: “Lord, you gave me that car, and now it is gone; I trust you to provide for my need again, and I am going to wait on you.” She then sensed the Lord answering her, and saying  “My daughter, I have something better for you.” So, within a couple of days, after getting back into her home, some folks from her church approached her and said “Hey, we heard about the accident with your car and how it got crushed, and we believe that The Lord wants to provide another car for you. Would you come with us please?” And they took her to a local car dealer and asked her “what kind of car do you want?”  She was blown away, but also praised God; that He would make such abundant provision! She told them that she had no idea what kind of car she wanted because she did not necessarily expect all of this. They again reminded her that “God told us to get you a car, so let’s see if we can find something here that would meet your needs.” So, they looked around the car lot together and saw a Toyota Corolla in almost perfect condition even though it was several years old, so they bought it for her. To her, this was yet another powerful testimony of God’s provision for her life, her family, and ultimately the ministry that He has put on her heart. She knows that with her God, it seems to just always go this way; He provides, and He does it in a way that is much beyond what she would ever expect.  She really believes that God will continue to do this in her life, fully confident in Him. What a blessing this lady was to us! As is often the case in this ministry, we went to her home seeking to be a blessing to her, and we came away totally blessed ourselves…our God does this kind of thing over and over; He is indeed wonderful!

Now let me relate another homeowner’s story. We will call this lady “Anna”. When we asked her if she knew Jesus Christ as her Savior she said “I absolutely do!”. So, it is our usual practice to find out a little more specifically how she came to faith in Jesus Christ. So, she proceeded to tell us her story. When she was 4 years old, she was 1 of 7 children with a single mom who worked 3 different jobs to support the kids. The family was always under severe financial strain and found themselves having to move frequently to find affordable space to rent for her family. They all often slept in the same room in these places. Her Mom did everything she could do to shelter her kids and in this time of Anna and the other kids growing up, mom ended up getting a divorce from a man who was an alcoholic. He was the father of all of the kids, but he was both verbally and physically abusive to her and them…thus she had to leave him. After she left him, she was involved in several failed relationships with men, and Anna and the other kids never knew how long she would stay with any of these men, or what kind of treatment they might receive. The kids were always in church though because an older couple in the mobile home park came and took them to church every week, usually at least twice per week for several years.  There was a Baptist Church right near the mobile home park and that is where they went with this older couple. She and the other kids became close with this couple and loved going to church with them…but mom did not go. So, because of this older couple’s involvement in the kids’ lives, Anna did have a knowledge of who Jesus was. Anna and the other kids were also very close with their grandmother, who often went to church with them. Grandma was always faithfully praying for Anna and her siblings and was always pointing them toward a relationship with Jesus. Grandma passed away though when Anna was very young, about 4 or 5 years old, and she was crushed by that. Then one night subsequent to the Grandmother’s departure to heaven, Anna was in the midst of a great struggle against fear, anxiety, and worry, again not knowing who her mom would bring home and what that man might be like. She was overwhelmed by fear and found herself crying and calling out to God and her Grandma. The mobile home they lived in had an arched window over the door. She looked toward that window in the midst of her great distress, and she saw her grandma there in the window. (she believes it was a vision from the Lord) Anyway, that vision of grandma spoke to her and said “Honey, you are going to be okay; you are going to be with me one day.” So through this vision, she was given comfort and reassurance that she would indeed end up in heaven with Grandma, and she was able to settle down and fall asleep. This vision of Grandma did not elaborate on any of that, but Anna knew what she heard was from The Lord. So she, at that time, at 4 or 5 years old, started to believe in God and know that He was real. She also came to believe in Jesus and so she continued on in her life with those 6 other siblings and they all continued to see her mom get involved in failed relationship after failed relationship. Finally, when she was around 12 years old she was at an event for the church (she thinks it was some kind of youth event) and at this event they asked her if she knew Jesus as her Savior and she said she absolutely did! The leaders at the youth event then told her that she needed to do what the Bible says concerning salvation so they explained how she needed to confess her sin, acknowledge Jesus as her Lord and Savior, believe that He died on the Cross for her sins, and that He was raised on the third day. She prayed that prayer and said I now surely know Jesus and then she was baptized. She has walked with Jesus ever since, and she is now in her 50’s. During that period of her childhood between the time she was 4 and 12 years old, she was assaulted by a man who tried to rape her in the mobile home park. He grabbed her while she walked by an empty mobile home and pulled her underneath the vacant home while she was trying to get back to her house after going to try and get her brother to quit playing basketball and come home to dinner. This man dragged her under there and proceeded to try and rape her and she was struggling with the man and she was absolutely frantic and didn’t know what to do and God spoke to her and said “hit the man with a cinder block” and she grabbed a cinder block and did in fact hit the guy in the head with it. Okay, I think she was 6 or 7 years old, and she grabs one of those big cinder blocks and hit the guy over the head with it and knocks him out or stuns him, knocking him off of her. She knew it was God who told her to do that and that He gave her supernatural strength to pick up that cinder block and hit the guy with it. If you know anything about manufactured homes and those cinder blocks-they are what the pillars that support the home underneath are constructed of….they are not loose and lying around; they are stacked up with the entire weight of the home resting upon them. So, there is absolutely no way anyone can pull one of those cinder blocks out from underneath that mobile home because the whole home sits resting on it. So how does that all work from our viewpoint? It doesn’t ! It does not make any sense at all—but God did it, so she has this amazing testimony of Him saving her life essentially. This woman is super-resilient; she believes that God has called her to minister to people who are hurting and knows that somehow God is going to use her along that line so we prayed with her and encouraged her about that. We prayed that she would totally immerse herself into and get into the Word of God and stay in it and listen for God’s voice and He will direct her and provide for that ministry. She also opened up when we asked about her husband. He is someone who made a profession of faith as a young man but has wandered away and is immersed in his job and his career; he has a very important job at Tyson Foods which is one of the major employers in this area of Northwest Arkansas. His job is very stressful and he’s quite the analytical thinker who is also highly intelligent. He struggles with Alcohol and so they haven’t been in church and she’s trying to minister to him and help him to come out of that but he’s not responding. We shared with her about continuing to follow Christ and that she should continue to exhibit His character in their marriage, and that this will cause her husband to come around. She shared that he’s already starting to come around and she said he’s noticed over the last couple of years the peace that’s in her life; something he does not have. So, we prayed with her that he would respond to that and that both of them would choose to get back in fellowship and that he would choose to recommit his life to Christ or come to Faith in Christ for the first time if he never has. We prayed for her husband to be ready to surrender at the Foot of the Cross whether it is a rededication or a first time Salvation commitment. We once again lifted her up to the Lord and asked that He would fill her to overflowing with the Holy Spirit so she could continue to exhibit Christ-Like character before her husband and win him over, showing her those verses in 1^st Peter 3:1-2 that speak to the wife winning over her husband by her good conduct. She is so courageous and we were very blessed to see the incredible faith that she has and how God has been intervening in her life from a very early age, and has faithfully guided her…and we know that He will continue to do so. We were all incredibly blessed by this visit!

Lastly, I will share John’s story.

John is a very interesting individual. He was there because his mother was not able to be there; and she was the person that we were to meet with; but as we have seen this whole deployment, God had a different plan! We stopped there and he was just in the process of taking a break from helping the team clear a large group of fallen trees and limbs in the back yard of this home. It is his mother’s home, and he stays here with his uncle and his mom. Our time of stopping was quite strategic, as he had been going nonstop for most of the morning, and he is the kind of guy that when he is busy he is too distracted to engage in any kind of in depth conversation. But we “caught” him (by God’s design) when he was tired and thirsty and had decided to take a break. When we first started to walk toward his house, he was nowhere in sight, so we were going to approach the Samaritan’s Purse team to find out where his Mother was. While thinking about that, we noticed a lady across the street, looking intently at us, so my co-chaplain considered it a “ministry on the way” opportunity and walked over to her. I was still at our car, waiting to see what might develop, and then he called out to me and said “Hey John, get that Bible in the back that is for delivery” so I grabbed it and went over. It turns out that this lady’s Bible was given to us because the Samaritan’s Purse team had finished the work on her house but had not been able to get it to her. My co-chaplain had asked her name, and if she knew about Samaritan’s Purse, and she said “Sure, I know about them, they were at my house just two days ago!” Then he got her name and remembered that we had that Bible….thus we were able to meet with her and pray for her, presenting the Bible. She was overjoyed and so very thankful. In that unplanned visit (and we had a lot of those!) she explained the family history of those who lived in the house we were intending to visit, thus we received a lot of helpful information from her that we would have never had concerning John, his Mom, and his uncle who lived there. All of this was a huge help in understanding how to converse with John, and I firmly believe led us into a place that ultimately led to John receiving Jesus Christ  as His Lord and Savior.

So our interaction with him went this way. He was there helping the Samaritan’s Purse Volunteers clear the fallen trees and brush behind his mother’s house. And because we got there right when he decided to take a break, we were able to engage in extended conversation. It turns out that John was raised in a Christian home, and grew up knowing who Jesus is, but had never made a full surrender to him for salvation and did not know Him personally. He finished high school and went on to Seminary for 3 years, but left there before he completed his degree, deciding that the ministry was not for him. He then began to describe to us all of the jobs he has had, and the many business ventures he is involved in. He is very intelligent and intuitive by nature and loves to research and learn new things…he is kind of a modern day renaissance man in a sense; he has a lawn maintenance company, a silk screen t shirt company;  and a handyman business that is doing quite well. Because he very much enjoys intellectual debates of all types, religious and secular, he does that quite a bit. It turns out that my co-chaplain enjoys this kind of thing as well.  John started his t shirt company as kind of a joke shortly after the COVID 19 outbreak, and called it “The Wuhan Soup Company” based upon one theory that the Wuhan virus was transmitted from bats to humans when someone took some discarded bats from the Wuhan Laboratory trash bins, made some soup, and then the virus was transmitted to humans when they ate the soup.  Anyway, interestingly enough, when we were running the address on Google, it showed “The Wuhan Soup Company” at the address where we were headed, and I made a comment to my co-chaplain about it, wondering why a soup company would be in a residential neighborhood. When I told John that, he thought that was quite funny…and we all got a laugh out of it. He shared some of his slogans that he had put on some of his shirts, and they were indeed quite witty (unfortunately, I cannot remember any of them at this writing!). He shared that he had a time when he was heavily into recreational drug use, but never really got to the point of being addicted…for which he was very thankful. He admitted that he does have an addictive personality, and that right now he is trying to quit cigarettes. He has resorted to Vaping to try to wean himself off of them. I was able to give testimony to him of the fact that God delivered me from the bondage of cigarettes so many years ago, as He did with my co-chaplain who shared his story of deliverance. We explained to him that real, lasting, and true deliverance comes only by the power of the Holy Spirit once a man is Born Again. He said he had heard about the Born Again experience over and over again from his mother and his uncle; and he had heard it all of his life while growing up. It got to the point that he felt like it was being “shoved down his throat” so he refused to listen anymore. My co-chaplain was able to explain to him that it is indeed a true and legitimate experience that God intends everyone to have so as to live a life in communion with Jesus Christ. His uncle who lives in the house is a professing Believer, who is always “harping on him” about this, but he also has no job, does not contribute anything to the cost of keeping up the place, and is perceived by John to be a “leech” living off of John’s mother’s kindness. He gets a job for a little while, and then quits when it gets hard…and John has grown to resent him. His mother is wanting to sell the house because money is tight, but this uncle remains in it, and seems entrenched there; so John believes that his mother will have to evict this man. So, needless to say, John has had a lot of poor examples of Christianity in his life….and he explained that Seminary did not help this at all; it actually fed his doubts and inhibitions about giving his life to Jesus. My co-chaplain was able to testify of his own long and personal struggle with so called “intellectual problems” in receiving the Gospel, but that he in fact did after a catastrophic failure in his life. My co-chaplain was a lot like John in that he is very intelligent and creative, and did not see his need to be saved….but all that changed when he had a romantic relationship fail, not at his bidding, but at hers. He was crushed and humbled; and it forced him to start to reconsider things in his life, one being this concept of giving his heart to Jesus Christ. All of this resonated with John because he had been through a couple of very painful break-ups himself and was curious about how my co-chaplain had dealt with the emotional pain involved. Long story short, John, after hearing all we had to say, had his heart softened by the Holy Spirit. My co-chaplain then asked him, “would you be willing to repent of your sins, admit your need for Jesus, and invite Him to be your Lord and Savior? And John said “you know, I think the time has come for me to do that; and I don’t think you guys coming her is any kind of accident….I think it was a God thing.” So, he surrendered his life to Christ, and we rejoiced with him, giving him a brand new Billy Graham Training Center Bible. We then shared with the whole Samaritan’s Purse Team concerning his salvation and they all rejoiced along with him.

God was indeed doing a beautiful work in Rogers, Arkansas and we were very privileged to be participants in it. We also had the wonderful opportunity to witness a Baptism in Beaver Lake near Rogers held for a Samaritan’s Purse Volunteer who gave his heart to Jesus the day before….another amazing blessing!

To follow are some photos with brief descriptions.

Below is a sample “Contact Sheet” summary provided by chaplain Scott (on the right) to our Chaplain Coordinator, concerning the gentleman in the middle of the picture. Our Host Church will provide follow up on her new Brother in Christ.

Salvation associated with work order #242 The chaplains, after a very complicated series of events were finally meeting with a homeowner. She graciously invited them to sit with her in the shade of her garage. The conversation weaved back and forth between stories of the tornado and reminders of God’s love and provision. The chaplains began to share the Steps to Peace with God with her when her husband unexpectedly pulled into the driveway. He is a kind and soft spoken man and sat and listened quietly as the chaplains explained how to have a saving relationship with Jesus. As the chaplains finished, the homeowner assured them that she had asked Jesus to be her Lord and Savior some years before. The chaplains asked her husband if he understood what had been said, knowing he spoke Spanish, and he said yes. They asked if he had ever asked Jesus to be his Savior. The man replied no , but indicated that he wanted to. After praying to receive Jesus, he said “this is the reason you came here and the reason that I came home when I did!”  Praise the Lord for showing us His plan and for taking care of every detail!