Rev. Corey Meyer, Director of Mission Partnerships
We walked into Marcus’ house on Friday morning, just over a year since Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston, TX, area. It was just one of the hundreds of thousands of homes rocked by the winds, rain and flooding sustained over days. It was estimated that over $125 billion dollars worth of damaged was caused by Harvey and nearly 100 fatalities occurred. Disasters like this are unforgiving, they’re relentless, and their impact on the community lasts for decades. Marcus’ home is located in Texas City, a smaller town to the southeast of Houston near Galveston and the Gulf of Mexico coast. What had happened in the year since?
By the looks of it during the day you wouldn’t guess that the community endured one of the most devastating hurricanes in history. But at night, as Steve Huston, the long-term Disciples volunteer pointed out, that’s when you could tell. Dark houses were sprinkled throughout the area, a sign of no life and no hope for rebuilding. Spaces that housed families now sit as a reminder that not everyone comes back after a disaster like this. Some may have the opportunity to flee to the safety of family and friends; others flee with no where else to go. When the destruction of the community is all over where do the others go?
Luckily, Marcus and his wife had family in the area to live with, their home less destructed by Harvey. For the last year three generations of family all cohabitated and waited. The volunteers over the summer came in slowly, mostly middle school and high school students.
We missed the gutting of the molded sheetrock and flooring, the removal of all the soaked furniture and precious belongings that happened in the weeks prior by groups of compassionate volunteers. The house we saw was recovering, slowly. We spent our two and a half days texturing sheetrock to hide the imperfect work done before us, painting walls, installing doors and trim, and Mike Graves put to use his tiling skills.
When we walked in that Friday morning I could not comprehend what is was like to be dependent on well-meaning, mostly unskilled church folk to rebuild my home week by week. We had driven 800 miles south to join the recovery work of Texas City and the Houston area. Thousands of volunteer hours are being poured in the community and hundreds of people continue to wait. Waiting for someone to notice their house is in disrepair, waiting on insurance checks to come in, waiting for signs of hope and new life ahead.
They wait for us, people who answer God’s call to be the hands and hearts of recovery.
