Christians mobilize to help after monster tornado strikes small Oklahoma town.
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
SULPHUR, Okla. — After a monster tornado hit this southern Oklahoma town late Saturday night, the Vinita Avenue Church of Christ swung into action.
With power out Sunday morning, the congregation — which counted 38 worshipers on a recent Lord’s Day — canceled the regular assembly and focused on helping storm victims.
“All I could say was, ‘God is good,’ because everyone helped everyone,” said church secretary Linda Mitchell, whose home sustained broken windows and tree damage.
Volunteers from the church and Project Unify — an evangelistic disaster relief ministry associated with Churches of Christ — mobilized to provide physical and spiritual assistance.
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“We just came and went into the destroyed areas and just handed out Gatorade, water, snacks,” said Project Unify’s Willie Franklin, a Texas-based evangelist and former National Football League player. “We just prayed with people and were looking for those folks with the big, big questions, like, ‘Why did God let this happen?’”
Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Effort dispatched a tractor-trailer rig full of food and emergency supplies to Sulphur, a town of 5,000 about 90 miles south of Oklahoma City.
Volunteer Andy Miller made the 700-mile drive from the ministry’s Nashville headquarters.
Miller left Tennessee about 4 p.m. Tuesday and arrived at the Vinita Avenue church about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. He slept in the rig’s cab for about six hours before volunteers arrived to unload the boxes about 8:30 a.m.
“It’s neat to watch how people come together … and just fulfill the needs of what people need,” said Miller, whose regular job is serving as family life minister for the Southern Hills Church of Christ in Franklin, Tenn., south of Nashville. “Because I came in through where the tornado hit, and it’s just torn all to pieces.”
This story appears in the online edition of The Christian Chronicle.
Photo by Audrey Jackson
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