How to Help Kentucky Tornado Victims

Volunteer or Donate to the Tornado Relief Fund

On December 10–11 2021, a series of devastating tornadoes touched down in Kentucky. The powerful swarm of twisters tore a 200-mile path through the state, leaving demolished businesses and homes in its wake. Governor Andy Beshear announced that the state is mourning 78 lives lost to the estimated 40 tornadoes, while neighboring states report additional deaths.

The full extent of financial loss remains to be calculated as disaster assistance and emergency relief program volunteers begin cleaning up rubble. The state needs organizations and individuals to support with natural disaster recovery efforts for the victims and families who have lost nearly everything. As an organization, GoServ Global has a devoted domestic team who specializes in bringing heavy equipment, volunteers, and resources to disaster sites immediately following a disaster to assist with cleanup and recovery efforts.

Who can volunteer for tornado relief? 

GoServ Global is calling on interested volunteers who are age 18 or older. Our emergency relief program coordinators need individuals who can perform the following physical tasks:

• Pick up debris from the ground
• Rake debris
• Help families sort belongings
• Secure tarps to homes

For disaster relief jobs in areas hardest hit by the Kentucky tornadoes, we are also seeking the following skilled volunteers:

• Equipment operators to run skid loaders, mini excavators, and chainsaws
• Mechanics to maintain and repair skid loaders and excavators
• Mechanics to maintain and repair trucks and trailers

What does a disaster response team do?

As a disaster response volunteer with GoServ Global, you may help Kentuckians clean up debris, recover personal items from wreckage, and rebuild property lost to this devastating and historic weather event. GoServ Global’s construction volunteer opportunities are open to those who are qualified, willing, and able to help us administer disaster relief services.

Disaster response volunteers may also pray for the victims of these storms. Here are specific ways to pray for this mission:

• Wisdom for leadership
• Details and logistics to come together
• Victims to encounter the love and provision of God
• Safety
• Resources
• Volunteers

I can’t volunteer.

Not everyone is in a position to become a Kentucky volunteer. We understand that you may not have the skillsets, physical abilities, health, or time to join our natural disaster recovery efforts on the ground in Kentucky. However, you can still support the people of Kentucky. Families need financial donations and prayers from people like you at this time and for many months ahead.

You can deliver hope domestically during this extremely difficult time. Countless Kentuckians have lost their homes, clothing, food, pets, places of employment, and vehicles. Many have to live in temporary shelters and hold funerals for loved ones. While financial donations help tornado victims through this difficult time, your generous gifts also pay for GoServ Global’s relief-related expenses, such as fuel, maintenance and repairs, travel to devastated areas, as well as lodging and food for volunteers during their time in Kentucky.

The GoServ Global team is also seeking a passenger van to transport volunteers to and from Iowa, as well as donated meat to feed our volunteers.

By donating to GoServ Global’s domestic disaster relief fund, you can deliver hope to the Kentucky families who experienced these devastating tornadoes. It is only because of God’s blessing and grace to us that we can do this for others.

About Our Domestic Emergency Assistance Program 

The passion of the GoServ Global team is to bless people who are God’s creation. We seek to bless people who have a need, and for some reason, struggle to meet that need on their own. We desire to do this by offering a helping hand.

The people we serve include, but are not limited to, U.S. families impacted by natural disasters (i.e., floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, derechos and ice storms), widows and older Americans, single parents, and individuals stuck in poverty. Through our domestic relief services we aim to:

• Maintain an inventory of resources that can be quickly deployed when needed, including tools, supplies, heavy equipment, trailers, and trucks
• Recruit, train, equip, and manage volunteers while helping people in need
• Clean up natural disasters at no cost to homeowners

We also partner with other nonprofits to help them meet their goals in serving people. We provide an avenue for churches, businesses, individuals, and community groups that want to send people or resources to help in a natural disaster area. From Missouri, Indiana and Iowa to Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and now Kentucky, GoServ Global’s domestic emergency relief program extends a hand and changes lives.

Get involved today and deliver hope to those in need through volunteering or donations.

At GoServ Global, we believe child sponsorship has the power to change lives and deliver hope to children across the globe. All children deserve to have access to medical care, dental care, safety, love and protection. Sponsoring kids is a compassionate way to connect you and your family with a child in need and their community.

How Does Child Sponsorship Work?

What does it mean to sponsor a child? When you sponsor a child through a child sponsorship program, he or she experiences physical, emotional and spiritual benefits. Sponsoring benefits children worldwide, in places like Haiti, Guatemala and India. Your special relationship with your sponsored child can transform their life and provide them with a better future.

Child sponsorship starts with three simple steps:

1. Select a child to sponsor on a monthly or yearly basis.
2. Receive your welcome to learn how your monetary gift helps your sponsored child thrive.
3. Stay informed of your child’s progress through photographs and updates.

You’ll quickly learn that sponsoring a child doesn’t just change one life—it changes your life, too. Read more

Dear Coronavirus,

I’m really starting to get tired of you.
I’m tired of the way you speak fear to people.
I’m tired of way that everyone talks about you. Until you show up. Then no one speaks your name. It’s almost speaking of death itself.

I’m tired of seeing the way you make people suffer. The way you suck the air out of people. Literally. How person after person has tried to tell me how hard it is for them to breathe but they can’t even get enough air in their lungs to tell me they can’t breath. But they don’t need to say it. I see it. I see you. And I don’t think I even need to say your name. They know it. No one needs to say your name. So we’ll just avoid the word ‘virus’ all together.

I’m tired of watching so much suffering with medicines in hand but feeling so empty handed. Seeing so much pain with no way of properly treating it nor a treatment that’s proved to safely work.

I’m tired of this pit that you have left in my stomach. This pit that tells me that I might as well not waste my time on the person that you have clearly already claimed as your victim. This pit that in one moment has a little bit of hope that things might get better, just to be crushed by the text I read the following morning saying the family doesn’t need the medicines anymore. They are buying a casket instead.

I’m tired of the way you make people buy any and every pill because they are desperate to have something, anything to help their loved one to breath again. As if every ounce of their hope is in put in this pill that will finally be the one to heal them. Have you seen what you make people do to buy medicine? The way they have to stand in pharmacy lines for hours. Literally hours. With not even the confidence that they will find the meds there. Because if they don’t find them in the first pharmacy, they’ll go wait endless hours in the next line. Just to leave pharmacies empty of medications. Now you’ve made me not just wait in line for the list of meds for patients, but instead search what feels like every pharmacy in this city to attempt to complete my patients med list. Each time I leave downtown, you twist my stomach just a little more as I try to figure out what I’m going to say to the family member of the sick person whose meds I couldn’t find that day.

I’m tired of the power you think you have over people. Trampling through our cities and homes. With something so simple as a cough, you weasel your way into another innocent victims life. All the while deciding how badly this person will be affected. Will you make them suffer a few weeks? Linger awhile. Maybe you just need someone to pass you a little further, so you hide in the shadows and don’t make yourself known to them. Just to have the next person die a cruel death thanks to you.

I’m tired of the way you have overwhelmed and collapsed our health care system. Exhausting all our efforts in tracking you down and containing you to leave us with nothing to offer care for the people who are sick with any other disease. Disease that we know how to cure! But you like the steal the show, taking all the attention and energy, don’t you?

I’m tired of the way people refuse to go to the only few hospitals left open because they know when they enter, they won’t leave again unless it’s in a bag. And actually, I’m tired of how you keep closing hospital after hospital. Almost as if you smile and check another one off your list while we hang our heads and shut the doors to another opportunity of aid.

I’m tired of the way you take ones life. The way you steal their mourning with lack of a funeral. The way you make them dig their own grave (literally).

I’m TIRED of you.

But am I surprised you’re here? No..
Do I think you’ll be leaving anytime soon? No..

So while you’re here, you should know a few things…

My joy is not found in my health.
Which means you can’t steal it.
My hope is not found in the “good days” or the easy days.
Which means you can’t rob me of it.
And my peace is not found in any pill. Which means that I still got it.
Your darkness cannot put out my light.
If anything, darkness just makes the light shine brighter.
Your grave it has no power.
Because there is a grave that conquered death already. And it doesn’t hold a body.

So welcome COVID. As much as we would like to see you go, more specifically as much as I would like to see you go, we know you’ll be around for awhile.

But as you stay, realize this one thing.. You think you’re winning. But you lost before you even started.

Your darkness.. it cannot… it has not.. and it will not.. put out our light.
Our hope isn’t found in you. And our hope isn’t even found in a cure.

Our hope is in Jesus Christ.

Sincerely,
Riley Brinkman, RN, Iquitos Peru

***Update***

So many have been asking how to support Riley and those affected by the Coronavirus in Peru. You can make a gift here – https://goservglobal.org/give/, Choose “Coronavirus Relief” in the dropdown, and write “Peru” in the note.

COVID-19 Update from Riley Brinkman, an RN & Missionary in Iquitos, Peru

Since the beginning of quarantine, curfew hours have only become more strict, the military presence has only increased, the state of emergency continues to be extended, airports and business continue to be closed, prices continue to rise, and the hope of getting life back to “normal” for the rest of 2020 looks slim.

The healthcare system in Iquitos is crashing. Our system was not equipped to handle a pandemic such as this one. With not enough beds for the sick, not enough protective equipment for the staff, not enough medicine for the hospitalized and not enough oxygen for anyone, people are dying everywhere. Not specifically from COVID but instead from the effects of what COVID has done. Sometimes it feels we have more sick and dying doctors and nurses than we do healthy. Some that remain have gone on strike. A number of pharmacies have closed doors.

Currently only two main hospitals remain open out of all the hospitals and clinics here in the city (one just for COVID patients and one for everyone else). However, reports have been started that one of the hospitals (for everything not COVID) will be closing this week, leaving us with one hospital and only treating those with COVID. **The population of Iquitos is 462,000**

First off, I am safe and I am healthy. Confident it is only by the grace and strength from our Sovereign Father and the prayers you all have covered me in. (And for that, I thank you!!). My ministry looks very different now. It feels like 12-hour shifts at Mercy Hospital again, but now I’m never actually off duty. My phone never stops ringing or dinging with a new patient or someone else needing meds. I have been on what feels like hundreds of house visits. I have passed out thousands of pills (the majority being vitamins, Tylenol – which has been out of stock for more than 2 weeks here! – decongestants, and antibiotics).

I have studied more and even harder than I think I ever did in nursing school because in school I studied to pass a test; here I study in hopes of helping someone heal. I have put in IVs in places where my shoes get stuck in the dirt as chickens run across my feet. This place has stretched me and grown me. It has broken me and opened my eyes.

To my already tired soul that was ready for a much-needed rest in the US, the long days became draining. It was a struggle in the beginning – not truly knowing how to treat people in such a place as this. Certain that care in the hospitals must be better than the care I could provide in home (as I come with nothing more than meds/IVs, my stethoscope, BP cuff, gloves, mask, and a heart determined to find out what is truly going on with this person).

Countless times I’ve wanted to order a chest X-ray or simple blood draw only to look down at my empty hands and around at the dirt floor and boards leaning against each other to create what they call their four walls. I have never learned to be more depended on God than what I have in this time. Seeking wisdom from the Holy Spirit in every step. Going where He tells me to, but more importantly, NOT going where He tells me not to go.

It has been a roller coaster of times. Draining and challenging, heartbreaking and discouraging, rewarding and encouraging, death and life. I have never been more thankful for the training I received in school and in the hospital, training to help me be aware and conscious of sickness and how not to spread it. I have also never been more excited to use my gifts and see the passion that I had wrestled with for so long here finally come to life. It’s amazing how His ways are always higher, if only we let Him write our story.

Please hear me, friends, this has not been a moment of bashing on the healthcare system here, but instead the reason for why it inspires me to do what I’m currently doing.

During this time, I would covet your prayers!

What is Child Sponsorship?

Child sponsorship is financial support that addresses a child’s physical needs, as well as emotional needs such as self-respect and confidence. Sponsorship funds support children with education, housing, hunger relief, medical needs and faith.

When you sponsor a child in need through our child sponsorship program, you help release that child from generations of poverty and give him or her a chance at a different life.

The Benefits of a Biblical Education

Sponsorship enables a biblical education, which can help the very poor change their life’s path. Children born to poor parents in some areas of Guatemala often get very little to no education. For example, in Guatemala when boys turn 12, they leave school and head to the fields to become day labors where they make $10 a day. As grown men, they receive $14 a day.

Girls are expected to follow a different path. While education has become more accessible for girls in recent years, many girls in Guatemala do not attend school. On average, girls in Guatemala spend only 1.8 years in school, according to the Cooperative for Education.

At age 14, girls are expected to find a husband, or their families will find one for them. Many girls give birth to their first child before the age of 17.

“A biblical worldview and biblical education is the best way to break this cycle and give these children a fighting chance in life,” says Mark Lee, GoServ Global Guatemala Director. “Child sponsorship is a great vehicle to provide a biblical education for children.”

How to Sponsor a Child in Need

A monthly or yearly donation can drastically change a child’s path in life. Consider opening your heart to a child who could benefit from sponsorship. To get started, follow three simple steps:

1. Support a child in Guatemala by visiting our child sponsorship page.
2. Receive your welcome email and learn how your gift helps a Guatemalan child thrive.
3. Watch your child flourish through photographs or project updates.

To help a child out of poverty, consider sponsorship starting at $35/month. Give with confidence that 100 percent of your gift goes directly toward your sponsored child.

Sponsor a Child

Peru Missionaries Assist Locals in Response to COVID-19

Peru was one of the first countries in Latin America to go into lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, two months after announcing a strict quarantine on March 16, Peru is now one of the worst-hit countries in the region. Despite the lockdown, thousands of people still contracted and spread the virus to others.

People on the frontlines—healthcare workers, police officers, first responders—and poor people have been hit hardest. Poverty has made social distancing nearly impossible for low-income people who must leave their homes to work and buy food at crowded markets. In Iquitos, Peru, many people cannot work at all during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, they rely on food donations from churches, like GoServ Global’s Genesis Church.

“What do you think of when you see a white flag? Most people think surrender. For us, it means desperation. A white flag means the household has no more food. It means the family living inside is down to nothing. It means the people in that house have decided to set aside the shame of poverty and put out a sign to show they need help.” – Riley Brinkman, Registered Nurse, Genesis Church

Living Day to Day During the Coronavirus Outbreak in Peru

In normal times, the people of Iquitos live on a day-to-day salary. They do not hoard or stockpile groceries and toilet paper like many Americans because there are only enough supplies to buy for today. Plus, only 49 percent of households own a refrigerator or freezer, according to the country’s 2017 census.

Many have no choice—they must visit markets daily because they cannot stock up on food. However, without being able to work, people are struggling to get by just one more day. On April 22, the Iquitos people marked day 38 of quarantine. They also marked 38 days of not being able to work or make an income.

We Need Your Prayers & Help with Donations

We invite you to prayerfully consider supporting our Peru missionaries at Genesis Church. Distributing food to those in need is only possible with the financial and prayerful support of others, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the health and wellness of the Iquitos people.

This quarantine has also meant no church services. Based on unofficial announcements, it doesn’t look like that will be changing anytime in the near future. In addition to the growing need for food and basic requirements for our church body, finances at Genesis Church have suffered. The pandemic has left us as a church with less financial support and fewer donations.

We continue to pay our staff and bills, but finances are running low. If your heart is moved to help with donations during the COVID-19 pandemic, please follow these steps to contribute funds so our Peru missionaries can continue to help feed the people of Iquitos:

1. To help with donations, make a monetary gift by visiting our Give page.
2. Select ‘Coronavirus Relief’ in the dropdown menu.
3. Write ‘Peru’ in the notes box.
4. Submit your donation.

Your donations help feed people. Donate today to help us reduce the white flags of desperation on homes across Iquitos.

Thanks to everyone who has given to GoServ Global since our Facebook Live Event two weeks ago! So far, we have reached $93,000 toward our $150,000 goal!

If you haven’t already, consider giving to GoServ Global. Your gift of any size will have a big impact.

Here are a few ways you can give:
1. Text HOPE to 80888
2. Give online at https://goservglobal.org/give/
3. Mail your donation to GoServ Global, PO Box 193, Eagle Grove, IA 50533

#DeliverHope
#BeAWorldChanger
#GodIsBiggerThanCovid19