We’ve been pretty busy helping out with some projects around church and keeping our equipment ready to roll, and roll we’re going to do!  We’re headed to Indiana to help with some major flooding. 

Some of you know Steve and Deb from Indiana.  They’ve been faithful supporters of Calvary Relief for a long time, not only praying and supporting us financially, but they’ve also joined us in the field many times and helped us move Camp Calvary a couple of times.

Unfortunately, their area has been hit by a major flood.  The flood was caused by a lot of rain and it’s still raining.  A couple of rivers and many creeks have overflowed.  This came right after a lot of strong winds hit the area causing other types of damage.  From what I’m seeing there are many areas in IN and OH that are suffering the same.  We’ll be serving alongside their church, Wilkinson Church of Christ in Wilkinson, IN.  We’ll be doing tear outs and water/mold remediation, taking our commercial equipment, sprayers, chemicals, and other needed tools with us.  We'll be driving our diesel and pulling our tool trailer.

They’ve already begun tearing out their first home.  Ron’s home was built in the early 1900’s and a lot of the foundation is stone, so it’s a couple feet off the ground.  They had almost 3 feet of water in their home!  I’ve been on the phone with them answering questions and had a good talk with Ron and he’s relieved that we’re coming up to help.

I’ve been busy working on our tool trailer, removing a lot of stuff that we won’t need and then loading up the commercial equipment while Mary Jo’s been busy packing up our personal items and getting our home set to close up.  We haven’t done a short-term trip like this in quite some time, and I forgot how much work needed to be done to get on the road!  And of course, it’s all outside and we’ve been pushing 110 heat indexes every day!  We’re just about finished and we’re trying to get on the road sometime tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday at the latest, to arrive Wednesday/Thursday.

We’ll be seeing what we can do to house out-of-town volunteers so if you’re interested, let us know.

Since we’ve been back in Sarasota, we’ve reached out to some different areas affected by disasters.  We’ve been able to recommend responses that people can contact to volunteer or donate if they feel so led.  One recent tornado we were able to send money to a small church to purchase a nice chainsaw to help with debris cleanup in their community!

This trip will be our first short-term trip since we moved Camp Calvary to CC Sarasota!  We believe that The Lord is still wanting to use us in disaster relief but doing more short-term trips like we did when we began over 22 years ago.  We’ve been spending a lot of time and money on keeping our equipment up and going, which is a full-time job for me, and honestly weren’t sure if we were spinning our wheels and whether we’d ever go back on the road!  And now here we go again!  God wants to use the willing and we want to be willing in whatever way until He calls us home!

Since we moved back to CC Sarasota, our home church, we’ve worked on many homes from the 3 hurricanes that came through here 2 years ago.  We currently still have one that we want to help with, Trent and Rachel’s.

We’ve been helping them through their ordeal since their home began flooding during Hurricane Debby.  They were told they couldn’t rebuild their home on the ground and thus began their long journey dealing with Sarasota County and their ever changing/evolving rules to keep folks displaced by a nature disaster from rebuilding their homes! 

We finally got some good news on their rebuild.  They were able to get their demo permit about a month ago and I was able to film some of it.  Click here for our FB post with the videos, And the house came down!! A 360 of... - Curtis CalvaryRelief Hencye | Facebook.

They have since finally got their construction permit and unfortunately Trent’s dad moved to heaven the same day.  They’ve been through a lot and still need our prayers!

So far there’s been no movement on the rebuild and we’re not sure what’s going on with the builder.  He bills them a lot for his “time” working on things, but there’s not any movement and supposedly he was ready to move once the permit came in.  Pray it will happen soon!  We’ll let you know as opportunities to serve come up with them in the future.

If you’re interested in growing in The LORD as you selflessly serve others alongside of Calvary Relief, please let us know!  For more info on joining us, click here.  Plenty of things to do!

If you feel led to help with any of the expenses with Calvary Relief, please click here.

If there’s ever anything you need prayer about or just need to talk to someone, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us and let us know!

Here to serve and disciple until He calls us home,

Curt & Mary Jo