Students from Andrews University aided in reconstruction in Three Rivers, Michigan, on March 11, after a devastating tornado tore through the city the previous week. The Tornado Disaster Relief event was organized by the Center for Faith Engagement (CFE) and the Discipleship Center. The event lasted most of the day, with work being accomplished in a morning shift from 8 a.m. to noon and an afternoon shift from 1 to 5 p.m. Students met at the Church of Christ of Three Rivers and, from there, got to work.
Around 10 students came out to help as part of the event, with some having signed up beforehand and others making the decision the day of. Nate Reid, a senior majoring in digital communications, was one of the volunteers, working as part of the morning shift.
“We just started going around talking to people and seeing if we could pray for them or help them, and it went from there,” he explained. Reid described how one woman’s broadcast antenna had fallen through her home’s wall and how he and others aided in removing the device.
Ximena Leon, a junior majoring in elementary education, participated in the afternoon shift. The work she and others did was similar to that done in the morning, though more focused in scope. “When I came at three, they already were set on one house,” she said. “When I came, we were focusing on that one house because that house had a lot of damage done to it.”
Reid described how people in the community helped orient them to the houses that needed the most help. Not much of the town was left unscathed by the tornado, and descriptions provided by students who saw it firsthand provided a sense of the scale of the ruin.
“The closer we got to the area, the more and more I was wondering how it was actually going to look, and it felt like all of a sudden it went from everything looking fine to just devastation,” Reid recollected. “You can tell exactly where it felt like the winds had gotten really strong and the tornado had ripped through, and so all of a sudden it was just like, ‘Oh man! That building’s missing a roof! That building’s missing siding! That apartment building is totally torn apart!’ It was definitely a bit shocking.”
Leon concurred when describing her own first impression of the scene, saying, “When we entered Three Rivers, Michigan, we had our jaws drop because the signs were everywhere, we saw trees uprooted, and buildings, the bricks fell in the cars, and there’s a bunch of damaged cars everywhere. We were in shock.”
The suddenness with which the disaster struck also meant that the organizers had to assemble the response at a breakneck pace. Crystal Hernandez, part of the Discipleship Center’s team and one of the organizers of the event, described the process, saying, “To be honest, it took like a day because of our short time in knowing that students were going to head out to spring break and midterms, and we’re like, ‘What is the prime time that, even if it’s a few, we can help them experience that?’”
Indeed, with the aid the organizers managed to secure, loose debris wasn’t the only thing students were able to clean up. The Gideon Rescue Company, an Oklahoma-based disaster response organization, flew up to Three Rivers to provide some industrial support to Andrews’ efforts. Even prior to Gideon’s arrival, Andrews students took the initiative.
“We started knocking on doors and going and speaking to people, ‘Hey, how can we help? Is there anything that we can pray for?’ We got a little bit on our own, and then they arrived,” Hernandez recalled.
Despite the marked devastation of the landscape, one consistent observation among the volunteers was everyone’s positive service attitude. As Hernandez noted, “I really appreciate that everyone who came… they were literally smiling…so happy to serve. It was so beautiful to see.”
The aid Andrews students provided to the Three Rivers community went beyond simply helping to clean up the tornado’s mess. They provided comfort and prayer to those affected, as shown when closing out the afternoon shift after cleaning up a particularly devastated house. Leon recalled the team singing “Amazing Grace” for the homeowners and offering a prayer over them.
Though the people of Three Rivers were certainly blessed by the help that Andrews students were able to provide, the students themselves have found themselves equally blessed by the experience. Describing how she was inspired, Leon offered, “My biggest takeaway is, go when you are called. When God calls you to do something, go ahead and do it, because when I saw that Instagram post literally the day before, I felt this calling to be like, ‘Ximena, go help. Go out into the community and help.’”
She concluded, “We ended up having an amazing experience, and it feels really nice to help people. Just helping out in the community. So I do not regret it one bit.”
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.