108 of the 252 lives Helene claimed were taken from North Carolina alone. Josh Benton of Send Relief says the rest of the world may have moved on, but as hurricane season peaks again, the ministry response is still there.
"The work does continue in all six states that were impacted," he reports.
"We had torrential rains from one week prior to Helene coming, tropical force rains, just heavy, heavy," Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham told American Family News last October. "All the rivers and all the creeks were already full, and then Helene comes, and entire mountainsides started coming down."
Entire communities were wiped out, and critical infrastructure was destroyed in many mountain towns in the hills of North Carolina and Tennessee. Benton says they will never be what they were before the floods, but a new normal is taking hold.
"That rebuild work continues with repairing homes, rebuilding homes in many cases," he relays. "There's still a lot of work going on and a lot of work to be done."
The churches that have been centers of hope for their communities are still reaping the good that God brought out of the chaos.
"In that immediate response, the Church was at the center of meeting needs," Benton recalls. "Even now, they're reaching out into places that maybe they hadn't before."
As volunteers and financial resources are still needed, he encourages people to contact the Southern Baptists' global compassion ministry, a collaboration between the International Mission Board and North American Mission Board, to learn how they can serve in those communities.
Send Relief exists to respond to "life-altering moments" like natural disasters with the life-giving gospel of Jesus by connecting people in need with people who care.
