By Chris Moon
Christian churches in Cape Coral and Port Charlotte, Fla., are scrambling to help their congregations and communities recover from Hurricane Ian.
In Cape Coral, Crosspoint Christian Church is a bit limited for space these days.
One of the church’s two buildings—the one that houses staff offices and a student center—is closed off from operations. A decent portion of its roof needs to be repaired, and the building is without power.
Staffers are working from home, if that’s possible. But some still don’t have internet, and so they are working at Starbucks or Panera Bread.
“It’s a little bit scattered right now,” said Matt Swearingen, the church’s lead pastor.
Such is life after Hurricane Ian.
The storm came ashore in Florida on Sept. 28, bringing high winds and heavy rains. The destruction was widespread. Local churches are working hard to put things back together.
‘INCREDIBLE’ RESPONSE
Thankfully, Crosspoint suffered no fatalities among its members. But at least 10 families, Swearingen said, can’t live in their homes due to storm damage.
Some of those homes are total losses.
“They literally will have to bulldoze their homes and start over from scratch,” Swearingen said.
A lot of people in the congregation lost cars.
And yet, some suffered no losses at all . . . “they literally didn’t lose a single shingle,” Swearingen said.
But church members have been there for each other, even with the disparity in hardship. Some members have been out pretty much every day serving in some way, Swearingen said.
Some have opened their homes for fellow church members to live temporarily. Some have loaned out cars.
Swearingen said he knows of one person who was invited to use a spare room in the home of a fellow small-group member—and they’d only known each other a couple of weeks.
“It’s been incredible, honestly,” Swearingen said.
JUST SHOWING UP
The work has extended to people outside the church family. Church members have cut sheetrock, tarped roofs, and cleared yard debris.
Shortly after the storm, 25 people from the church went to a retirement community made up of mobile homes. According to Swearingen, it looked like Hurricane Ian “shredded them up like tin cans.”
Church members spent the day walking through the neighborhood offering to help with anything they could.
“We just showed up,” he said.
Swearingen said the church recently took food to an elderly woman who is a shut-in. When they got to her house, they found a large amount of yard debris. A church crew is planning to head back soon with chainsaws to clear it.
Swearingen grew up at Crosspoint, spent years on staff, and became CCC’s lead pastor in August. He was in his new position less than two months when Hurricane Ian struck.
“It’s definitely been a quick on-ramp,” he said.
Because Swearingen has spent so much time in the Crosspoint family, he said he was not surprised to see how the church responded to the storm.
“I really believed this is who we were as a church,” he said. “That’s been really incredible to see that lived out.”
He said he also has been reminded during this “significant upheaval” of the goodness and stability of the gospel.
“It’s the reality in the aftermath of the storm what’s still true,” he said. “People lost everything. People in our community passed away. People lost homes. . . . Yet in the midst of all that, the gospel is still good. The truth of who our God is and how he loves is still as true as it was before this storm.”
SERVING THE COMMUNITY
Meanwhile, at New Day Christian Church in Port Charlotte, Fla., volunteers still are gathering at 8 a.m. each day to head into the surrounding neighborhoods to help with storm clean-up. This despite the fact that many people have returned to work, and many of the schools in the area have resumed classes.
“We’ll have dozens of people [show up],” said Rusty Russell, lead pastor at New Day.
The church also is hosting International Disaster Emergency Service, a disaster relief agency affiliated with the independent Christian church movement.
Russell said volunteers have done work at more than 400 homes. They’ve used up more than 200 tarps during the past three weeks.
Russell said that work is slowing down, but there still is much to do. People still have a lot of yard debris and other, more minor damage to their homes. The opportunity for ministry has been great.
Some people are surprised the church and IDES offer help free of charge—while other people and businesses are out to make some quick money by tarping roofs and cutting up downed limbs.
“God’s people showed up,” Russell said. “Instead of taking from people in a time of crisis, they are giving of their own time and money.”
COUNTING THE LOSSES
Within the New Day congregation—which averages about 1,600 at its weekend services—a lot of work remains to be done.
Russell said about 15 percent of the church family have significant damage to their homes. By that, Russell means holes in roofs or worse.
Some of those people are displaced, living wherever they can.
One New Day staff member is living in a trailer in her driveway with her husband and three kids, Russell said. The bedrooms in their home were severely damaged during the storm.
Many people have insurance, but they must scramble to come up with the deductible, which oftentimes amounts to 2 percent of the value of a home. That’s thousands of dollars.
And yet, the work goes on.
“It’s just a stressor on your life,” Russell said. “When everybody’s going through that at the same time, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”
While 15 percent of the New Day congregation suffered major damage to their homes, another 80 percent have minor damage—missing gutters, damaged pool cages and fences, missing soffits.
“Ninety-five percent of us have something,” Russell said.
The church facility was not spared. Russell said he expects the damage to top $100,000 after the eye wall of the hurricane caused 150 mph wind and rain pummeled the north side of the structure.
The church building served as a local shelter immediately after the storm, and it has continued to hold weekend services.
Russell said he recently asked a staff member who endured Hurricane Charley back in 2004 how the next weeks and months are likely to play out. The staffer said after Hurricane Charley, “everybody fell apart” at Christmas time.
Compassion fatigue set in and the emotional blows of the recovery efforts piled up. Things could be the same after Hurricane Ian.
“This is not going to be over at Christmastime,” Russell said. “We could use a lot of prayer.”
Chris Moon is a pastor and writer living in Redstone, Colo.
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