Hurricane Harvey Response: 2017-2020
The Storm
Hurricane Harvey devastated the Texas Gulf Coast in August of 2017. Trinity’s Sunday School building was flooded and badly damaged, and tens of thousands of homes in the communities around us were flooded to depths of five feet or more.
Only days after the storm EFCA Crisis Response partnered with Trinity Fellowship in Friendswood, Texas to be the hands and feet of Jesus. They helped us make our flooded building livable, and then brought in teams of volunteers from all over the country to live in our building and rebuild home Friendswood, Dickinson, and League City and Houston.
The Staff
Reach Global Crisis Response provided marvelous staff people for the more than three years of our Friendswood response. These have included:
Kat Welch, our site leader for the first two years, now heading up the ministry’s trauma care
Sarah Davis, our second site leader, who first came to Friendswood in 2017 as an ordinary volunteer.
Victoria Davis, Sarah’s older sister, who served until summer 2019
David Jackson, a longtime member of our church who joined the response full time as soon as he finished rebuilding his own flooded house.
Kerry and Sheila Jeska, who got to Friendswood in mid-2019 and have since moved on to the Lake Charles response.
The Impact
Over three years we had hundreds of volunteers from dozens of states. They gave up their vacations and school breaks to gut, hang sheet-rock, mud and sand, texture and paint, then install flooring, trim and appliances for homeowners. Many dozens of homes were fully or partially rebuilt.
But the greatest impact has been on lives. Dozens or perhaps hundreds of homeowners and family saw the love of Jesus expressed in very practical ways. Seeing this love changed them. Many grew closer to Jesus as a result, some trusting in him for the first time. Some got involved in church, some got involved in Crisis Response, some were helped out of the trauma that a storm like Harvey brings.
