NEW YORK CITY (BP) -- Hurricane Sandy, which now has killed at least 96
people on the East Coast, also brought with it opportunities for
churches to connect with people in their communities, a church planter
on Long Island, N.Y., said.
Most of the response from Ecclesia
Church of East Islip has been "friend-to-friend, neighbor-to-neighbor,
like loaning your car to somebody who doesn't have gasoline," pastor
Sterling Edwards told Baptist Press Nov. 2.
"People have opened
up their doors to let other people take a shower if they don't have
power," Edwards said, adding that people who do have electricity have
provided meals for those who don't.
On one street, he saw
extension cords running from one house to another as people with power
helped provide it to people without. About 3 million customers in the
Northeast remained without power Friday, including most of Long Island.
Edwards
moved from Texas six years ago to plant a church in New York, and he
remains pastor of that plant, Crossroads Church in Farmingdale, and is
pastor of a newer congregation, Ecclesia, about 20 miles away. Both are
on Long Island.
A missions team of four adults from Champion
Forest Baptist Church in Houston was in New York before the storm hit to
help with fall festivals at both church plants. The team tried to get
out of town Sunday but ended up having to stay.
"They were just
here to help us, and they have a tremendous heart, tremendous attitude,"
Edwards said of the volunteers. "None of this slowed them down
whatsoever. They were almost in one way glad to be a part of the action,
to be able to help us."
Ecclesia, which is only a few months old, meets in a former Anglican church. That facility did not lose power during the storm.
"We
set up a table outside the church Wednesday night and passed out candy
to the kids," Edwards said. "We passed out coffee and chocolate chip
cookies to the parents to reach out to them.
The storm coinciding
with Halloween caused more people to be out on the streets, giving
Edwards and other church members opportunities to talk with them and
meet needs.
"God has a way of using these events to break us out
of our normalcy and cause us to look to Him for help," Edwards said. "I
think this has helped us be identified as a church that genuinely cares
for people and loves people. I've talked to a hundred more people this
week than I talked to ever before this week. God has a way of connecting
us with people."
Several members of Ecclesia have had one or
more feet of water in their homes, the pastor said, including a groom
who was to be married at the church Nov. 2.
"They're going to be
married in like three hours," he said. "Their house is one of the
houses that was devastated. They had just moved her stuff into his house
last week. They've got a foot of water, so the majority of their stuff
is ruined."
Just stopping to recount the story of the past five days helped Edwards put things in perspective, he said.
"We've
been going pretty hard, and I'm sure we're tired," Edwards said. "Even
just doing this wedding today is really putting things in perspective of
being a part of this community."
Ecclesia's goal, he said, is to
get the message of the Gospel out to nearby residents, and as tragic as
the hurricane has been, it has turned into a way to do that.
"I
feel like I've been given a really unique seat to see a lot of things
happen. We're really excited about it," Edwards said of the promise of
seeing lives changed.
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