Arriving in North Carolina was a sobering experience.
I went to a small town called Green Mountain to deliver lunch to a crew of the PCCR volunteers, who were helping with hurricane cleanup.
We drove in and immediately I was shocked at the amount of destruction that had gone through the town. There was a collapsed bridge on the right, and all along the left side of the North Toe River there was debris, fallen trees, missing parts of the road, and demolished houses.
Soon after we arrived and put lunch out, a gentleman came and offered to escort us to his house just down the road.
All along the way he told us about the many things that once were along the riverside. Gardens…airbnb campsites…stores…roads…all now swept down the river.
We got to his house and he gave us a tour of what was left.
The house had about 4 feet of mud, with furniture everywhere and the remains of what was once him and his wifes home. The water line was only 3 inches from the ceiling.
I began asking him questions about his family and their experience of the storm. He started tearing up as he told us how the river just started rising higher and higher every day.
In the 60+ years that he and his family had lived there, it had never flooded past the first step of their porch. Thinking they would be okay as usual, they tried to wait it out.
The water got higher and higher each day. One day it reached the main level and started flooding the main level of their home. By the time they had grabbed what they needed the water was waist deep.
Crawling out through the house, racing the rising water, they climbed up through the woods to their sisters house, a little further up the hill.
He went on to show us his little shrub shed where he grew his different types of shrubs, completely demolished.
Never in my life had I ever seen this amount of heartbreak in such short a time. But never in my life had I ever seen such a huge amount of care, love, and willingness to serve from people all over the place either.
Getting to experience being the hands and feet of Jesus in such a small way during my time in NC was one of the best things I’ve ever done.
-From a volunteer