Seeing God work after a hurricane

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 17th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: cleaning up after Hurricane Helene.

In Asheville, North Carolina, severe flooding and catastrophic landslides washed away homes, businesses, and schools. Without reliable Internet and clean water, schools in the area are closed until at least the end of the month.

BROWN: WORLD’s Grace Snell has the story of a Christian school rallying to meet the needs of its community

GRACE SNELL: Search and rescue crews hover over a muddy landscape heaped with rubble. Debris litters the ground: smashed trailers, overturned vehicles, and mangled houses.

It looks like a warzone.

This used to be a bustling private school. Asheville Christian Academy stands just off the Swannanoa River in Western North Carolina. As Hurricane Helene dumped buckets of water across the area, the Swannanoa burst its banks and engulfed eighty percent of the campus.

JASON PUTNAM: The entire water flow of the Swannanoa River encapsulated our buildings, our facilities. And probably 45 acres are now covered with various types of debris.

That’s ACA Head of School Jason Putnam. He arrived after the storm to find classrooms buried in ankle-deep mud.

PUTNAM: When we initially walked into the building, it was, I just never seen anything like it. It was devastating.

Now, teachers, parents, and students are picking up the pieces. School is out—and life won’t be normal here for a long time—but the people of ACA are pitching in and looking for ways to care for their neighbors.

PUTNAM: Every morning, we pray together and we ask for God to show up for today’s needs and today’s needs only.

Surveying the devastation now, it’s hard to imagine life as it was a few weeks ago. Halls buzzed with high schoolers decorating for homecoming, and students busied themselves with math tests and soccer games.

MERA: It was Wednesday afternoon. I just finished having AP stat class, and I received an email on my laptop saying to be careful about the hurricane.

Seventeen-year-old Mera is an international student from Nigeria.

MERA: I went home thinking, “Oh, I hope we don’t have school tomorrow, that they canceled school.” And in the night, I still remember this vividly, we’re all celebrating that we weren’t gonna have school.

Ahead of the storm, lots of people expected Helene to be a false alarm like Hurricane Irene in 2011.

MERA: It wasn’t until Friday morning, I woke up to the sound of the power going out, and then I couldn’t sleep after that, because I was just hearing some cracking of trees. I didn’t realize it was trees falling right next to my bedroom.

There was no power. No water. No cell service.

Across town, Amy Johnson loaded her kids into the car and merged onto the highway. The seventh grade teacher and mom of three hadn’t been able to get in touch with friends living on ACA’s campus, and she wanted to make sure they were okay.

JOHNSON: When something happens, you go to the people you know, you go to the people you love. And so multiple families just showed up here at the school.

Together, they pulled out the food reserves from the cafeteria. Incredibly, the store remained untouched.

JOHNSON: The chips, the drinks, the Gatorades, and we just started handing them out to anybody that was driving by. The look of bewilderment and just shock was on people’s faces as they drove by, but also just gratitude.

Soon after, a recovery crew showed up on ACA’s doorstep. They had been driving through the area and stopped to offer their services.

A recovery crew volunteers to help clean ACA. Photo courtesy of Asheville Christian Academy

JOHNSON: There were cheers and there were tears, and they started the work. There were, I don’t know, 100, 150 people here cleaning the school out immediately so that the water and the mud would not be here.

That crew is still forging ahead. Tearing up flooring, salvaging transcripts and papers, and scraping off mud.

But it’s a mammoth task. The river caused an estimated twelve to fifteen million dollars worth of damage to the campus. And ACA’s flood insurance won’t cover all the needed repairs.

The losses at ACA aren’t just financial, though. Amy Johnson says there’s also a high emotional toll for kids who have already weathered a global pandemic.

JOHNSON: I have a senior who wants to play soccer in college, and when he saw the soccer field on the Saturday after the hurricane, saw vehicles on it, saw a mobile home, saw the mud, he said that “I’ve played my last game on that field, and I don’t know if I’ll have a season.”

On top of that, Johnson says “AP classes don’t slow down” for hurricanes, so students’ exams still fall on the same dates. Mera is also a senior this year, and she’s worried about college applications. November 1st is the early action deadline for many schools.

MERA: So I’m out there worrying, when am I going to have time to do this?

But in the middle of everything, ACA families are also deeply grateful for God’s provision. Biltmore Church—a multisite church nearby—has offered two of its campuses for ACA to resume classes. They plan to start up next week.

JESSICA: We lost a lot of material things, but we didn’t lose any students or any families. We’re just thankful and we’re grateful, because you can replace things, but you can’t replace people.

That’s Jessica Harrison—Mera’s host mom and another ACA teacher. Harrison said the people of ACA aren’t just receiving help, they’re rolling up their sleeves to help others. Her family started serving with their local church. Many others volunteer with ministries like Samaritan’s Purse.

JESSICA: These kids are learning about service. We serve because Christ served us and we love, because Christ loved us first.

Mera says that’s why she can still smile even though her senior year abroad looks nothing like she pictured.

MERA: I never thought I would have come here and expected a hurricane. But I just, I just feel that this volunteering thing has continued to strengthen my relationship with God through helping other people.

ACA’s motto is “Christ in Everything.” And Amy Johnson says that’s a truth her family is clinging to on the long road to recovery.

JOHNSON: Christ really is in everything here. He’s in the teachers and how they are loving their students. He’s in the students and how they are reaching out to other community members. He’s even in how this whole operation of cleaning up the school. Christ is in everything here, and for that, I’m really grateful.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Grace Snell.

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