A Day in Storm Lake
Serving alongside our domestic team and the families affected by natural disasters
Regan Crawford
Writer, loves languages, travel, and serving for the Lord
On Saturday, April 26th, I rode with a team from Clear Lake over to Storm Lake, IA, to serve alongside the Domestic Team. It was my first time serving with them, and I wanted to share an example of what a day with Domestic can look like.
We all gathered at the church to pray and grab our lunches (provided by our church staff member), before loading up and making the 2+ hour drive west. One couple loaded up their truck with a chainsaw and gloves. Our fourth member road with me, and we headed out.
The drive was easy to make conversation, talking about missions around the world and how we got involved in certain ministries. It always takes me by surprise how you can think living in a small town there’s few surprises left – but people have countless stories and maybe my town is a little bigger than I thought. It turned out the person I was riding with was a missionary with International Messengers. Asking questions about his story and the places God called him to preach the gospel made the time pass quickly.
We arrive at the Storm Lake Fire Department seconds apart from the other part of our group. Walking in, we see the friendly face of Barb sitting behind the table. She shows us the bathrooms, takes our volunteer forms, and then walks us over to a a large map that’s been pinned up. It showcases the town, with street names, and has marked down all the places that were affected by the wind storm that came through, a week earlier.
We get sent to a house where another small team is working. I get introduced to some volunteers that have served with GoServ Global for many years, having taken multiple trips to Haiti and worked alongside Dennis. The location is a house, where a tree fell into the back yard. It damaged the chain link fence (they have a dog, so this needed mended), and needed cleared out. First step is talking with the family to make sure we know what they want. The Domestic Team takes care of that. A familiar face is that of Paul Dick, who always serves so selflessly when our paths cross. It’s always a good reminder to see such humble people giving their time to help others.
We join the crew to help clear out the tree that had already been cut into smaller bits to be manageable. We carry the trunks to the curb and build a pile of branches and leaves. I hear someone joke about racing Dennis, trying to build a bigger pile than he can catch up to us. Dennis pulls up in the skid loader and gets to work, grabbing at our pile we worked hard to make and getting it all in one go. While the joke was a fun team morale builder, it became very clear throughout the hours in Storm Lake that there was no getting ahead of Dennis in the skid loader. While I don’t know a lot about them, I could quickly see he knew what he was doing and had honed the skills to get work done quickly with minimal impact on the property.
We went to three different houses. One we walked into the back yard and there were several massive pine needle trees down in the back yard. More chain linked fences damaged. This one was special because we got to work alongside the families of the homeowners. We got to meet the neighbors. They told us how the storm came in the middle of the night, and they lost power from about 1:30 AM until 5 PM that day. We worked for about 1.5 hours and got one of the major trees cleared up. With almost 15 people, it really made the saying, “Many hands, light work,” obviously true. The first step we had to do was go through with the chain saws to make the branches manageable for moving. Thankfully Dennis could come into the back yard with the skid loader, so we just had to pile it. The loads were huge, but he was careful to make it past the house without causing damage to their property. It was 3-4 loads of the truck dumpster. He estimated it would take about 10-15 gallons of fuel for the trailers and skid loader and chain saws. It all adds up. I kept imagining what it would be like as the homeowner, trying to find time to fit in cleaning this up on your own while you still have to go to work and get your kids to school, plus only having one or two people working at it. What took us a few hours to clear away could have taken them a few weeks to actually get to. And that’s if they had the equipment they needed and knew what they were doing. I sure wouldn’t know how to pick up a chain saw and get the job done.
There’s a lot more that happened, but the day was a good one. We offered to pray with the families that we served alongside, learned pieces of their stories and lives, and then when we were out of time, we loaded up for the day. But that was just my group. The others, they’d be there longer. The Domestic Team planned to be there until the work was done.
This is just one story of serving alongside the Domestic Team – everyone’s are different. I can say with certainty that it was positive, it was fun, and it was meaningful to be there and spend a few hours with likeminded individuals and fellow Iowans, our neighbors. I came home with a scrape on my face and bruises from when I carelessly grabbed branches, and I had the fun of striking up many conversations about the work as people in my community asked about what happened. I’ve never been gladder for a scrape on my face! My heart continues to carry prayers for the people affected, and a joy as well because of the people I got to meet who were there serving without complaint. They really do just humble and impress you as you get one peek into who they are. Our God is so big. We just keep praying for Him to turn things around for good, and thank Him for the people He sends to be His hands and feet because they know we love because He first loved us.
GET INVOLVED
Domestic Team wraps up in Storm Lake this week, but there is still much work to be done in the areas affected by the 2024 historical flooding. If you’d like to get involved, we are looking for volunteers! If you’d like to support financially or through prayers, we are in need of support to keep our equipment running and for God’s provision and protection.
