Uninsured tornado victims on pastor?s heart

Uninsured tornado victims on pastor?s heart

Mar 23, 2012
By STAFF

HENRYVILLE, Ind. (BP)??Forty percent of ?our community are uninsured, and it?s not because they?re bad people or even that they?re poor people,? said Toby Jenkins, pastor of First Baptist Church in Henryville, Ind., one of the towns hardest hit by the March 2?tornadoes that ripped across several states.

When the nation?s economic slump hit, many residents were unable to continue the insurance on their houses, Jenkins said.

Cecil Seagle, executive director of the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana, agreed that many tornado victims are facing financial crisis.

?[W]e really need to have folks who are either uninsured or under-insured find a way to begin rebuilding their lives,? Seagle said.

In hard-hit areas such as Henryville, Marysville and Pekin, Seagle sees small signs of recovery: Power poles are being raised and debris hauled away. But it pales in comparison to the scale of the destruction.

?We?ve probably been in 65 to 75 of these storms over the years where we?ve been just actively involved in disaster relief, and I never, never, ever get used to the sight, the smell and the feel of absolute loss when I stand with families and people looking at the result of a storm that they could not do anything about,? Seagle said.

Local churches and Southern Baptist?Disaster Relief teams are doing their best to help tornado victims, cutting away limbs and brush, putting tarps on damaged roofs and providing basic necessities to tornado victims, with more SBDR teams slated to arrive in the days ahead. An SBDR incident command center has opened at Bethel Baptist Church in nearby Memphis, while FBC Henryville serves as a hub for volunteers and ministry. The North American Mission Board also is providing assistance.

People responded with an outpouring of donated items such as food and clothing, Jenkins said, noting that the items are?appreciated and being put to use. But he said the church is well-enough stocked so that more pressing needs can be addressed.

?The pastors organized quickly,? Seagle recounted, ?and began doing a number of things?meeting needs, sharing the Gospel and caring for those who were really, really needing the kind of pastoral care that would get them through the storm.?

Seagle, former Missions Division director of the Florida Batpist Convention with extensive disaster relief and recovery experience, sees daunting challenges ahead for the affected communities, including the?psychological toll that a disaster can take.

?I especially worry about homeowners who experience the shock, and they just can?t comprehend it,? he said. ?Almost without exception, the next phase of that is a huge, huge depressive, overwhelming ??We cannot cope with this.? And so the hope that we have is our disaster relief volunteers and our leaders on the ground ... will be able to step in and say, ?This is going to take us a while, but we are going to recover.??

Jenkins said he has seen numerous?examples of God at work in the midst of that recovery, such as when one of First Baptist?s deacon lost everything and had no place for his family to live.?

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