We were in cell phone contact with our friends who live in the direct path of Hurricane Helene on the Florida coast. They sustained significant losses to their property. But I never thought to check on my friends 200 miles inland in Black Mountain, North Carolina. I spent several days with Anna and David in their Presbyterian church in the summer of 2023. A beautiful church with an active membership near the center of Black Mountain. Today that church has canceled all worship and programming until further notice. They have become the distribution site for water and emergency supplies. And they open the church every day from 11-1 to serve food to 1000 folks a day who have had their lives upturned by the catastrophic flood water of Hurricane Helene. Another nearby church is the “cell phone charging station” for residents of the whole community.
As the reports of damage of “biblical proportions” in North Carolina roll in, I keep thinking about the good church folk of Black Mountain who are working round the clock to support the broader community. What a holy witness! What a life-saving presence. I keep thinking of that ordinary church on the corner embracing that devastated community with the unconditional love of Christ. I think they are standing exactly where Jesus stands in the world today – where people are facing life’s unpredictable storms serving up heaping portions of grace, peace, and a plate of hot food.
The apostle Paul wrote to the early church. “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (I Corinthians). I keep reflecting on David and Anna and the folks of all ages in that Presbyterian Church who I got to meet while there. Anna tells me the church folks have just been amazing in this horrific crisis. Why else would Paul have called them, “the body of Christ”?
Grace and Peace,
Carla
