We got the call from Rev. Roger Gillming, our Nebraska Conference Disaster Relief Coordinator last Saturday night. He said, he’d been up at Springview, NE looking at fire damage for a couple days and they could use some people to come and help.
There were 50 people trained in Hastings by the United Methodist Committee on Relief to be Emergency Responders this past spring. So Saturday night Cindy started e-mailing those folks about the possibility of traveling to Springview on Monday and staying until Wednesday. In the end we had eight people who could stop, drop and go on less than 24 hours notice.
I drove the Grace UM Church van the four hours to Keya Paha County on the border with South Dakota. We were met at the Springview UM Church by their pastor and several members of the church on Monday afternoon. Our churches were represented by Keith Hausler and Rev. Julie Bringleson from Rosedale and me. The other churches represented were First UMC, Hastings; Grace UMC, Hastings; First UMC, Kearney.
Our first task was to go and clean the Norden Pavilion, 19 miles to the west. It had housed some of the 400 fire fighters these past two weeks, and there was a Fire Relief fund raiser dance scheduled for Saturday night. Doug Bruce from Grace church power washed the outside of the building and the rest of us wiped down all the tables and chairs and wet mopped the cement floors. There were tiny drifts of soot everywhere inside that building. The flames had come within a few feet of this historical building.
Each night the church fed us supper. We cooked our own breakfasts at the church and packed our own lunches to take with us to the work sites. Part of us slept in the church basement on the cots we brought. Others slept in members’ homes or in the vacant parsonage. In the mornings before we headed out, we’d share the best and worst of our previous day, and, where we saw God that day. What was shared was just amazing.
Tuesday we split up. Part of us went to help a young couple who’d lost everything but their house to the fires. He is a custom carpenter and logger and he lost his shop, inventory and all his wood working equipment in the fire. The fire had come within a few feet of their home, but the house was spared. Some helped clean the soot inside the house. Others helped cut burnt trees that had fallen on power lines and hauled off other debris around the house. The other half of our group went to help a man who’s house was just being built and the fires had melted the exterior plastic wrapping off the outside of the house.
Tuesday, some went back to the newly built house, the rest of us went to a ranch 25 miles west and south of Springview to help clean off the red fire retardant that’d been dumped and sprayed on the buildings on a ranch tucked in a valley not far from the river.
The church folks at Springview were so gracious and hospitable. Everyone we helped was so appreciative of our coming there. Our short three days together changed them and us for the better.
Thanks to both Doniphan and Rosedale for your extra offerings to help with this disaster in our state.
Grace & Peace,
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