PrepareTheWayToday
A Biblical Perspective on Preparedness and Crisis
PrepareTheWayToday
A Biblical Perspective on Preparedness and Crisis
By Chuck Reber
I don't know if you've been following the news and what's happening here in Charleston, WV but I'll give you a few paragraphs of summary and insights I've learned through the last six days. The lessons learned in this crisis can be applied to all of our ministries and highlights the need for family-level preparedness in caring for our people.
The Context of the Crisis
As a result of a chemical spill that contaminated our water supply, there are 300,000 people in their sixth day of being without potable water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and cleaning. The only thing the water is safe for is for flushing the toilets. When the announcement was initially made on Thursday evening (01/09/14), "don't drink the water it's not safe," it only took about 90 minutes for every store in nine counties to be emptied of their stock of water.
By the next morning the local fire departments, and some of the local churches not affected by the ban (being on a different water system), were setting up to give out water. Most of it was dispensed via tank trucks and water hoses. The traffic at the entrances of the distribution locations was backed up in extremely long lines and then the people had to stand in another long line to get their ration of water to haul home. It was interesting to note that the majority of the people coming for water did not have actual water containers on hand to carry the water home. Thus, you saw people with kitty liter buckets, pop bottles, milk jugs and coolers standing in long lines to get their 20 gallon limit of fresh water.
Repercussions of the Crisis
Nearly every motel and hotel in the "zone" was closed. Every restaurant was required by the Health Department to close. Some of the smaller food vendors were able to open on the third day, under the supervision of the health department, using 5-gallon containers of bottled water for food prep and cleaning. Schools and daycare centers are closed and people have to travel outside the ban area to get showers and hot food.
Churches and ministries are being affected because their staff and their people are spending hours, of their previous "free time," waiting in line for water, heating water for bathing and washing dishes (plastic ware and paper plates are in high demand), and having to watch their children, who normally would have been in school and daycare. Ministries that were involved in feeding the poor have had to stop because of the lack of safe drinking water.
The Crux of the Problem
If this was your house of prayer/ministry, composed mostly of single adults and young couples, imagine the nightmare. Sure, the ministry could keep the doors open because you could bring your own drinking water, set up a sanitation station for hand washing and the toilets would flush using the contaminated water. However, the problem lies at the grassroots level - with the individuals and families who show up and do the ministry, who suddenly don't have the time available to carry out their assignment because of the complications brought into their lives by the water crisis. If they have to wait in line for water, have to take bucket baths (for them and their children), have to arrange for sitters because day care and school is closed, and have to drive long distances to get to a laundry mat to wash their clothes, chances are their ministry assignments will suffer.
Compounding the Problem
Now imagine if the crisis had a much larger footprint geographically with a much larger population involved. Which is totally possible in many of the areas where your ministries are located. Add to that, a disruption in communications (cell phones, TV, radio, internet) and/or transportation hindered (roads blocked by disaster or clogged from evacuation) and you have compounded one crisis with another and multiplied the severity of the situation for your people. We were fortunate that we were the only crisis on regional emergency response map. Thankfully the resupply of water was not complicated by other infrastructure disruptions as noted above.
The Wisdom of Preparedness
As a contrast, let me tell you about out folks at Shiloh House of Prayer and those in several other local churches that have attended our preparedness training seminars and put into practice what they learned.
Upon hearing the water ban, we immediately contacted all our people to check on their meeds. We also contacted the pastors and leaders in the churches/ministries we have relationship with as a preparedness network. To a person we heard testimonies that they had enough water stored for their families and were helping their neighbors and other family members that live locally.
Now not everyone had enough water for 6 days, but they did have enough stored water to weather the initial 72 hours of the crisis, which kept them from having to shift into panic mode. The ones that did have large supplies of stored water were offering to help resupply those in their relational network. That's the beauty of doing preparedness in a network of like-minded people; you have resources to share with ones in need.
Our people were able to spend their time caring for their families, carrying out their ministry assignments, and caring for others because they practiced the wisdom of preparedness. Think about how your HOP can keep its people in place in times of crisis and continue to carry out the ministry mandate that God has given you. What will it take to do this so they don't have to cancel their shift because they are standing in line for supplies?
Update
As of Tuesday (01/14/14) the water company was beginning to restore water service by zones. Residents and businesses were instructed on how to flush their systems in order to restore them to safe levels. They project that everyone affected by the contamination should have water by the weekend.
I encourage you to seek the Lord about how to keep your ministry actively serving the Lord in the hour of crisis. This crisis, for us, was a merciful gift from the Lord to allow us to test our systems, to see our weaknesses and strengths, and to see that the great masses of the people are totally unprepared for any crisis.
Rejoicing in God's Goodness. . . .
© Preparethewaytoday.com
Insights into the WV Water Crisis
I encourage you to seek the Lord about how to keep your ministry actively serving the Lord in the hour of crisis. This crisis, for us, was a merciful gift from the Lord to allow us to test our systems, to see our weaknesses and strengths, and to see that the great masses of the people are totally unprepared for any crisis.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014