Community volunteers multiply Texans on Mission ministry

HUNT—Things can change quickly in disaster relief. Because of this, Texans on Mission trains its volunteers to be flexible—to expect the unexpected.

So when 13 new volunteers showed up to serve in Hunt, the Texans on Mission flood recovery team from Marble Falls welcomed them aboard, and the new recruits went to work.

“We started out with eight of us total, and we ended up with 21,” said Evan Everett, leader of the Texans on Mission Marble Falls unit. “It was pretty neat, though, because a lot of the volunteers … that came later, probably about half of them were not believers.”

The reinforcements are called “day volunteers.” They are not trained in disaster relief, but when paired with trained Texans on Mission volunteers, they provide extra hands for the work.

On Saturday, July 19, those extra workers also had the opportunity to hear about having a relationship with Christ.

“We had the opportunity to be able to just share with them about Christ,” Everett said. “Some of them were Hindu. Some of them were searching (spiritually).”

But the Marble Falls team worked side-by-side with new arrivals and shared their motivation for working—to serve people in Christ’s name.

God provides people with the right skills

Paul Henry, Texans on Mission incident commander, saw God at work in bringing the unexpected day volunteers.

“God brought people with skills and talents that they (the Marble Falls team) needed in that particular job that they were doing,” Henry said.

And God also brought “the opportunity to share the gospel” within the workers and not just with the homeowners.

The extra workers allowed the team to complete the mud-out work faster and opened the door for more service in the large home on the north fork of the Guadalupe River, upstream and west from Kerrville.

The homeowners already had secured materials to begin the rebuilding process and asked the Texans on Mission volunteers if they could help, Everett said.

“And so, we made quick work of the basement, and made quick work of the rebuild. And a lot of the rest of our day was just getting stuff back inside that was outside,” he said. “It just ended up that it was great that we had them.”

The homeowners needed help sorting through items that had been removed from the house—some being kept and some being discarded. The volunteers went through everything, and the homeowners directed the items to the proper place.

“If we hadn’t had the volunteers, we wouldn’t have been able to do that in a timely fashion,” Everett said. “It would have taken a long time.”

Day volunteers’ presence offers ministry opportunity

Trained Texans on Mission volunteers “provided the leadership and the expertise to allow the whole team to go in and do serious mud-outs,” Henry said. “They can cut the sheetrock, get the insulation out, get the floor up, they can power wash, they can spray, they can do the whole job, and they can work with large numbers.”

The day volunteers provided “an incredible amount of manpower,” Henry said, but there are limitations. For instance, some of the people who joined the Marble Falls group had physical limitations. “That’s why we had some of them in the kitchen washing dishes, because that was something they could do.”

Others in the group brought needed skills.

“These volunteers bring skills like contractors, they’re landscapers,” Henry said.

They also brought resources to the Hunt site, including a dump trailer the entire team loaded with limbs.

The fact that some of the day volunteers in Hunt were not Christians provided a special opportunity. Henry called it a “built-in ministry where they’re working side-by-side with people they can share the gospel and live the testimony out before them.”