“Rockport looks like a warzone, Kristi. It’s worse than anything I have ever seen.” Dan shared over the phone.
He described a home where the dishes and other belongings inside the house were stacked neatly on the counter and shelves.
The shocking part was he wasn’t peering at these neat piles through a window… the wind had lifted the roof and side wall completely off the home!
How did wind that powerful lift the roof totally off, but not disturb the dishes?
It was eerie.
This trip to Rockport felt totally out of the blue to us.
Our real plan for this week in 2017 was to take our kids to the mountains of New Mexico on a vacation.
We’d never blocked a family trip like this off in our calendar before… especially not in September.
Right before those blocked weeks, we watched the TV in horror as Hurricane Harvey pummeled the entire coast of Texas. Millions of people were impacted. We both had an unshakable sense that our calendar was reserved so Dan could go help.
Friends helped us fill Dan’s truck high with supplies and he set off to the find a way to serve in the areas impacted.
Some close friends even decided to join him.
He had an even bigger goal in mind as he traveled. He was working as the Men’s Director at our church, Stone Oak Bible, and he was searching for an opportunity to get the men of the church involved in long-term recovery.
He first showed up in Houston and joined Redemption Church in reaching out to flooded neighborhoods. They were doing an amazing job helping people pull the soaked insulation from their walls and drag their ruined possessions to the curb.
“I feel like I am supposed to go to Rockport next, Kristi. Can you search for a way to plug in there and serve?”
I spent hours calling churches, scouring websites, and searching social media feeds trying to find Dan a connection into Rockport. All I could find was a single address on a church’s Facebook page.
“I went to the address you gave me and no one was there. All I saw were piles of donated water bottles and diapers.” Dan shared with me.
My heart sank.
“I spent a long time driving all around town, but couldn’t find any way to plug in to serve. I donated some things a local pastor told me over the phone were needed… I’m coming home.”
His voice sounded tired and disappointed.
Why had Dan felt so stongly that God wanted him to go to Rockport?
How could he bring teams to serve without somthing to plug into?
It felt like a dead end.
Have you ever felt God leading you to do something, but when you stepped out in faith it seemed like you walked into a dead end?
It’s easy to feel disappointed and to start questioning if you should have stepped out in the first place.
But is it actually a dead end or could God opening up something beyond what we can see yet?
On Dan’s drive back, he had the idea to call a friend hwo worked at the district level of the EFCA.
What we didn’t know at the time was that this conversation would change the course of our entire lives.
“Hey Katie, I was wondering if you know of any organizations involved in Hurricane Harvey recovery. I’m looking for a way to get the Men’s Ministry at our church involved over the long-term recovery.”
“Have you ever heard of Crisis Response?” she answered.
“No.” he replied.
She explained a little more and then exclaimed, “You would be perfect for Crisis Response! Do you mind if I set up a meeting?”
A few days later Dan found himself meeting with the directors of Crisis Response in Houston which led him to take a “vision trip” to check out a site in Friendswood, Texas.
On the vision trip, Dan saw what he was looking for in Rockport!… A way for churches all across America to send short term missions teams for a week to serve.
He saw a team of volunteers show up on a Sunday. They didn’t need any experience because they were given the correct tools and shown exactly what to do to pick up where the last team stopped the week before.
Part of the volunteers worked to restore the local church and others were led into homes of people impacted in the neighborhood. The goal was to come alongside their neighbors to help them restore their homes.
What Dan loved the most though, was the emphasis on “people over project”. The volunteers are encouraged that if the homeowners need a shoulder to cry on, a person to pray with, or someone to listen as they process, this should always take priority.
Before I knew it, we were saying goodbye to our friends and family and moving to join the staff of Crisis Response full-time!
We had felt led two years before to sell most of our possessions and move into an RV so we were perfectly set up to join.
Those first months in Crisis Response we experienced so many personal trials. But in the midst of it, what encouraged our hearts was hearing stories from church members, homeowners and volunteers of how their lives were being transformed!
Over the past 3 years, the stories haven’t just been from the site we are working at. Crisis Response has sites all over the US and some incredible news began to trickle in from a site in Corpus Christi.
We heard the story of a homeowner who was about to give up on life, but a Crisis Response volunteer team just “happened” to show up that day giving her hope to keep going. Over time, she decided to give her life to Christ and her life has transformed!
We also rejoiced when we heard that the Corpus Christi site was leading volunteers to serve in neighboring cities… including Rockport!
AND one of our Crisis Response teammates for almost 2 years, Kevin Saegart, who was leading teams in to restore homes in these areas, felt led to plant a church in Rockport!
Over the years, Dan has had the chance to support our incredible teammates at the Corpus site and one of their main focus has been to help Kevin with this church plant.
We have been living at the Corpus Christi site for the past few months and guess what happened this months?!!!
This new baby church was launched in Rockport!
Kevin asked Dan if he would help on the launch Sunday. As Dan drove out for this big day, memories of that initial trip flooded both of our minds.
We thought that first trip had been a “dead end”, but God had plans way beyond what we could see… including launching our family into Crisis Response.
We never would have guessed that three years later Dan would be driving into Rockport to be part of the launch of a new church… a church that was born out of crisis!
Many of the people attending are homeowners served by thousands of volunteers from across the U.S.
God has blown us completely away!
If you are feeling like God has led you into a season of dead ends, we want to encourage you to keep following God in faith and continue linking arms with the believers around you.
We’d also love to invite you to join our private Facebook Group right here where you’ll find a whole community committed to linking arms and sharing the love of Christ!