Volunteers are helping in Jesus' Name as hurting homeowners start to recover from deadly storms.
The Jan. 12 storm system that shook 79-year-old Annie Pearl Avery’s home spawned dozens of deadly tornadoes that tore off roofs and uprooted trees across the Southeast. Numerous communities and hundreds of homes were left in shambles.
The Jan. 12 tornadoes toppled large trees across the southeast.
Annie said surviving the EF-2 tornado that ripped through her Selma, Alabama, neighborhood was a terrifying experience.
“Glass was flying—It seemed like some kind of bomb was going off. It was shaking the whole house,” the resilient Selma resident said, recounting that January night.
She’d known the storm was coming, and as it approached, Annie put on her hard hat and grabbed her portable radio. She sat in her bathroom waiting, listening through the walls and also through the radio as it described the tornado’s path—it was headed for her street.
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It rattled everything all around her, and then, just like that, the noise and the shaking were gone. She slowly stepped outside to look.
“Part of my porch was up in the tree,” she recounted. “It was just hanging there and then I looked at the neighbor’s house across the street—totally demolished.”
Samaritan’s Purse Responding in Two Locations
Annie’s was just one of several Selma neighborhoods where twisters touched down that night. Samaritan’s Purse quickly deployed two disaster relief units—tractor-trailers filled with relief supplies and tools: one to to Selma and one to Griffin, Georgia. Nearly 300 volunteers have been tarping roofs, clearing debris and removing trees in the name of Jesus across both states since Sunday, Jan. 15.
Our volunteers presented Annie Pearl Avery with a Bible after working at her house.
Annie was one of the first people we helped. Her garage had collapsed, too, and a large tree had crashed onto her roof. Even after seeing this, she did what many Selma residents did after the storm—she checked on her neighbors.
Then she climbed into her old, white pick-up truck and started searching for water to drink and provide for the others on her street. Her pickup was also where we met her, because it’s where she’d been sleeping until the day someone in town mentioned Samaritan’s Purse and she called us. Then she started knocking on doors to tell her neighbors.
“I said to myself, ‘I might need these people and my neighbors might need them,’” she said.
Helping a Civil Rights Leader on MLK Day
On Saturday night after the storm, Tommy Smith, a Site Leadership Team member who has served with Samaritan’s Purse for 19 years, heard about Annie. His heart broke when he heard she was sleeping in her pick-up truck—he couldn’t wait to get her back in her home. Sunday morning, Tommy led a group of seasoned Samaritan’s Purse volunteers, readied with chainsaws, to begin clearing the monstrous trees off Annie’s home.
Annie, left, told volunteers stories about her days as a Civil Rights advocate in Selma working with Martin Luther King, Jr.
After Annie pulled up to her home the next day and saw all the volunteers, she said, “I’m crazy about them [the volunteers]. I couldn’t believe it, but I was just so glad just to see them.”
Many volunteers paused occasionally to sit and listen to Annie’s wonderful life stories. She was a dedicated advocate in the civil rights movement and cared deeply for all of those around her. Among her most profound experiences, she was part of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965 that included the tragic Bloody Sunday events on Edmund Pettus Bridge. Tommy said, “I could have spent the whole day just listening to her—it was special.”
When Tommy presented a Bible to Annie, he shared how it was an honor to serve her in Selma, especially on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, celebrated this year on Jan. 16. He went on to say that it’s not about the volunteers or anyone else, “Everything we do, it’s not to glorify nobody here, but only to glorify Jesus.”
As Tommy and the volunteers gathered around Annie to pray, many from the neighboring homes hurried across the street to join. Large, spontaneous prayer circles have broken out all across Selma at our worksites. “It’s like a revival sometimes,” said Paul Ishman, a Samaritan’s Purse disaster relief worker. “I’ll be a different person leaving here because I have seen something that is absolutely a miracle to me—seeing how God transforms.”
‘God Is Gonna Get the Glory’
Shortly after the storm passed, Clifford Hunter drove back home to Selma. He was in disbelief at what he saw. “It was like somebody had just dropped a bomb, and it exploded here in Selma.”
Volunteers are hard at work cleaning up homes and yards in Selma, Alabama and in other parts of the southeast.
Clifford heard about Samaritan’s Purse from a friend, and he was certain this group was sent to him by God.
“I knew that this was the group that I needed for me,” he said. “This is who I want to work with. This is who I want helping me.”
Clifford is a strong believer, and he knew God’s protection was on his home. He was full of joy knowing the Samaritan’s Purse volunteers who were restoring his property were doing it for the glory of God.
“It’s just so heartfelt,” he said while talking about the volunteers. “I’m so appreciative for Samaritan’s Purse. I really am and the work that they’re doing, and the love that they display while doing it.”
Just as Annie loved her neighbors, Clifford also testified to the unity he saw in Selma after the storm.
“To see the people come together from all walks of life, from everywhere, to make a difference in somebody else’s life—people that they don’t even know—that means so much.”
Clifford smiled widely and said, “And to see God work, because of this—God is gonna get the glory out of this.”
Please pray for families impacted across the Southeast by the deadly storms and for our volunteers as they help in Jesus’ Name in both Alabama and Georgia.
Billy Graham chaplains meet with Clifford as volunteers help clean up his yard and home.
