Earth, Wind, Water and Fire

When a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked southwestern China last May, the stories hit the airwaves. Network reporters scrambled to announce the mounting devastation. International aid organizations shifted into overdrive. Family members outside the country frantically sent phone calls and e-mails into overloaded circuits. 

And the EFCA’s crisis-response team kicked into gear: monitoring reports from ReachGlobal staff members on-the-ground in China, compiling their requests for aid and for prayer, and inviting the worldwide EFCA family to get involved.

That was May 12, 2008, in China. Only a week earlier, headlines had screamed of a cyclone hitting Myanmar. In that case, too, EFCA TouchGlobal Crisis Response orchestrated communication, prayer and funding. 

With the arrival of summer, phone lines and computers hummed with news of wildfires and flooding in the United States. Local EFCA churches responded, and TouchGlobal provided training for turning one-time disaster responses into ongoing, holistic ministry. 

Each crisis is devastating—loss of life, of livelihood, of hope—whether in a remote, developing nation or in our own backyard. But there is good news too:

Whenever you hear of a crisis somewhere in the world, there’s a strong likelihood that the Evangelical Free Church is already there—through a local church, through missionaries engaged in church planting or through like-minded ministry partners. Through someone able to extend the love of Christ as well as a helping hand.

In many ways, the 1993 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, started it all. That’s when the EFCA first began intentionally turning crisis response into holistic ministry.

Worldwide crises certainly had occurred before. Yet with improved international reporting and the launch of the Internet, those crises were now an up-close reality. At the same time, long-time EFCA missionary Jim Snyder had returned from Congo to work at a national level, just as overlapping world crises were threatening lives and ministry almost everywhere the EFC was involved: Japan, Rwanda, Sudan. . . 

Jim kept returning to one thought: If the gospel is accurate, then the Church will provide the one and only hope for these people. Otherwise, tons of money is going in, but there’s no real resolution.

So Jim began pursuing an intentional plan on the international front. Nine years later, in 2005, natural disaster struck the United States in the form of Hurricane Katrina—with devastating effects on active EFCA ministries.

Pastor Michael Sprague opened wide the doors of Trinity Church (EFCA) in Covington, La., just north of New Orleans. In response to appeals, short-term EFCA relief teams began pouring in. 

And Mark Lewis permanently moved his family down to Louisiana from Pennsylvania, to oversee the work as crisis response director. 

Now, three years and more than 12,000 Katrina volunteers later, the EFCA has an on-the-ground, stateside model for turning immediate crisis response into ongoing holistic ministry. 

Mark Lewis and Jim Snyder work hand-in-hand to address crises worldwide. Stateside, TouchGlobal teams travel to crisis-stricken areas and help organize community response via local EFCA churches. 

Outside the United States, they funnel resources through EFC staff members on-site and through like-minded, national ministry partners. 

The list of locations continues to grow where TouchGlobal is empowering local congregations and ministry partners to make both an immediate and long-term difference (see a list of responses to crises in the last few years). 

So the next time you turn on the news and hear of devastation somewhere, start praying for Evangelical Free Churches and their ministry partners. Most likely, the phone lines and e-mail connections have already started humming with requests for help.