LIMESTONE, Tenn. — Craig Ponder’s first impression of the ATV four-wheeler gang congregating in the church’s parking lot was not good.
“I thought they were a bunch of tourists coming to check out the flood damage caused by Hurricane Helene,” he said. “I was wrong, and I’ve since apologized. They were people coming to check on family members and friends cut off and stranded on the other side of the river.”
Ponder is pastor of New Salem Baptist Church, a quintessential church set atop a hill near where the Nolichucky River normally meanders through a countryside that could appear in a “Beautiful Landscapes” calendar. However, the usually placid Nolichucky became a destructive force on Friday, Sept. 27, ripping its way downstream through four East Tennessee counties and washing out four of six bridges in the area, damaging the other two. Snapp Bridge, near the church, held its ground but took significant damage.
“Brothers from the Mennonite community on the other side went to work almost immediately and got the bridge passable,” Ponder said. “That opened a way for the ATVs to get across.”
Within 36 hours, New Salem became a drop-off point for supplies, and by Sunday afternoon, the pavilion adjacent to the church was like a warehouse stocked with diapers, flashlights, batteries, gloves, shovels, Pine-Sol, water, canned goods, peanut butter crackers, dish soap – you name it, and it arrived. And if it wasn’t there, God was in the process of sending it.
“We’ve taken in supplies coming from everywhere,” Ponder said. “From Kentucky, Arkansas, across Tennessee, Florida. This thing is growing substantially. I could tell story after story of how God is at work through all this.”
For instance, New Salem provided supplies for a Cowboy Church in nearby Greeneville that is working with people who are helicoptering those supplies into the most cut-off areas.
Ponder said the Cowboy Church had distributed via social media a “list that was quite substantial,” and New Salem began to compile the goods for delivery. However, there were several items on the list New Salem didn’t have.
“As we were pulling things together for Cowboy Church, a truck rolled in from a church in Brookland, Arkansas,” Ponder said. “My team lead pulled me aside and said, ‘Pastor, everything that’s coming off that truck is on that list from Cowboy Church.’ So we were literally taking it straight off their truck, putting it in boxes and loading it for Cowboy Church.” (Story continues below video).
That’s just one story. Ponder also shares the story of not knowing he needed wooden pallets, but God did.
“This great big truck shows up here last week with eight-foot stacks of pallets,” he said. “What am I going to use pallets for? So, I put them on the backside of the church. This morning, I got a phone call from Bristol Motor Speedway (where people are dropping off supplies) and a lady up there asks, ‘Pastor Ponder, you don’t happen to have any extra pallets sitting around, do you?’ I said, ‘I’ve got stacks of pallets on pallets!’ They drove down and got them.”
“One more. Coffee cups. My wife told me we were out of coffee cups. I turned around, and there were two big giant garden bags. You guessed it, full of coffee cups. Before we even knew we needed coffee cups, God had folks bring us coffee cups. I could write a book about what God’s done.”
With the magnitude of the operation escalating, God has sent volunteer help too. New Salem church members stocking, sorting, stacking, and loading have been supplemented by volunteers from near and far coming to help, including the ATV gang who are loading up, crossing the bridge, and disappearing across the countryside to some of the hardest-hit areas.
“God is even using that,” Ponder said. “Those guys have become friends, and several have already come to church. We’re just trying to get out of the way and let God work through us in this disaster.”
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This story first appeared in the Baptist and Reflector.
