Two Morehead churches teamed up with Samaritans Purse to help with flooding relief in the south. Six people from Morehead Nazarene Church and Elliotville Baptist Church joined 70 volunteers in Dallas, Ga. to demolish flood-ravaged houses.
The team was responsible for going in to houses, one of which had been 10 feet underwater; the other three and a half feet underwater to remove mold covered walls, ceilings and floors
“If they had to pay someone to do what we did it was going to be costly,” Morehead Nazarene Church volunteer Debbie Link said. “What we did in a day and a half would take someone a month or longer to do in their spare time.”
“The first house we went to was Miss Polly’s house and what she had left would fit on half of a small porch,” Link said.
“When we first left I was going down with the mindset of being able to help these people and give them hope and strength,” Morehead Nazarene volunteer Niki Cornett said. “But whenever we met Miss Polly it was quite the opposite. Here’s this 80-year-old lady and everything she had was sitting in her front yard and the only reason she shed tears was because she was humbled because somebody cared enough to help her.
“When I asked Miss Polly what she was going to do about rebuilding her house she said I don’t know what I’m going to do about rebuilding my house,” Link said. “But my God knows.”
“It was just amazing,” Cornett said. “Everybody that worked with her got more from her than we were able to give her.”
“I think it went really well and we all felt bad that we couldn’t stay longer and we ended up more blessed than the people we went to help,” Elliotville Baptist volunteer Vicki O`Hair said.
“I don’t think any of us knew what to expect when we got there,” O`Hair said. “But overall we were pleased with what we were able to do and we’re definitely excited about doing it again. Not that we want the disasters but it does happen and unfortunately we’re going to get more opportunity to it again.”
“(The trip) was fantastic, it was more than what I expected,” Link said. “Samaritans Purse really has their act together. They feed you, they take care of supplies and they really know what their doing.”
“One of the ladies that lived across from Miss Polly had her house condemned,” Link said. “And she said God is so good because her husband had been put in the hospital for pneumonia the day before the flood. In the middle of the night she woke up to waist-deep water and there would have been no way of getting him out of the house if he’d been home.”
Samaritans Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan's Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God's love through His Son, Jesus Christ.
“When I went down there and cleaned out all this rotted floor and nothing was left but the raw boards and that’s what we left her with,” Cornett said. “I was heartbroken. She’s got so much more to do and you would have thought we gave her a new house.”
“One of the chaplains at Samaritans Purse has offered to build her (Miss Polly) house for free,” Link said. “But she has to pay for the supplies and that’s why we were trying to get money sent down.”
The Morehead Relief team has set up a “Miss Polly Fund” for Pauline Morris who’s home was devasted by three and half feet of flood water and is asking anyone that can to donate to help Morris with the price of materials to rebuild her house.
Donations can be taken to the Elite Hair Center on Main Street.
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