By Daina Doucet
Within three hours of the mile-wide, F5 monster tornado that destroyed most of Joplin, Missouri, in the spring of 2011, Crisis Response International (CRI) had deployed responders to assess needs, set up response posts and establish an atmosphere of worship and prayer. “We would have had someone there sooner,” says Sean Malone, 38, founder and director of the faith-centered, not-for-profit organization based in Grandview, MO, “but they too were under tornado threat.”
Often responders from CRI’s network of 1,200 volunteers across the United States are first on the scene. When a crisis occurs, “We make a decision whether to send an operation team in to get feet on the ground. When the ground assessment is done we mobilize teams.” In Joplin Wade Bakker, 39, of the Arkansas CRI chapter headed up the assessment team. Malone explains: “The first need was for search and rescue. That ended in a few days. Then it was to meet the needs of people. We set up a big tent, distributed hygiene kits, fed several hundred people a day, removed debris, and recovered items scattered abroad.”
While most of CRI’s efforts are directed toward disaster relief within the U.S., “Our scope and ability to respond internationally is growing all the time,” says Malone. “In Haiti we were the first relief group there. We mobilized 100 of our trained people right in the epicenter and established a base at Port au Prince. Our team members provided food and helped doctors run hospitals for about four months.” CRI is preparing to send medical teams back into Haiti in April 2012. Click video report.
Even though the need for disaster relief is “increasing exponentially,” according to Malone, as critical as it is world-wide, CRI is discerning with their responses. “We don’t respond to every disaster. With Japan we didn’t respond right away because of cultural and language barriers and because a nuclear disaster was involved.” He says that a month after the quake CRI had funding to train some Japanese/English-speaking workers who could be sent in “for the long haul. We were able to send teams over in November and we will be heading back for more relief related work in May 2012.”
Disasters are becoming significantly more frequent. In the month of April 2011 there were 875 tornadoes in the U.S. alone compared to a previous three-year average of 185 . “We’ve even had tornadoes in Massachusetts and in Chico, California,” areas not typically known for such severe storms. “We can’t keep up with the demand for people to get trained and prepared and we perceive a growing need for faith-based and community groups to be involved.”
The 75 lay volunteers who responded to the crisis in Joplin had been “screened,” had completedCRI’s five-day training and were on call. Training events at $425 a person, to date have been held in the U.S., but Malone says CRI has started training internationally. “We completed advanced training with a team of about 26 people in Israel in the spring of 2011 in co-operation with the army, fire dept and emergency services, and we will be heading there again October 2012 for more training and to work on restoring bomb shelters.”
Traditionally faith-based groups have not proactively engaged in disaster training because disaster relief has been carried out by government and secular agencies. As awareness of the frequency and intensity of disasters increases, says Malone, people see the need. Many wish to help, but in crisis situations feel inadequate and bewildered. He perceives that more volunteers, particularly from local churches, will be a necessity in the future.
Church groups can assist not only with hands-on personnel, but with chaplaincy services – also a provision of CRI – to help people emotionally and spiritually. “Our first goal in the midst of crisis is to meet immediate needs, but we also try to help people find answers to questions, and when it’s appropriate, we offer hope in God.”
It’s one on one that really counts, he says. “That’s a big value of ours – to love the one before us and bring a little light into their darkness. That’s why we do what we do.”
June 5, 2011, was CRI’s last day in Joplin. By then the immediate crisis had abated, people had relocated and “things were switching to long term assistance.”
Before the next crisis arises, CRI hopes to screen and train yet another group of responders.
Three-month training schools mobilize responders with an Apostolic Response to Crisis (ARC).
Three-week deployment follows the training. An ARC training school will be held in 2012 from February 12 to May 12, South Point, Hawaii.
Week-long training seminars certify participants with CRI or an affiliated chapter for international or national deployment, and qualify them to prepare their homes, businesses or churches as places of refuge. CRI’s website includes the ARC training school and deployment dates as well as seminar dates for those who “have a heart to see the nations reached in the midst of crisis as they live in the supernatural culture of the Spirit in night and day prayer.”
Daina Doucet is senior editor for the Acts News Network (ANN).
Originally published on ANN, June 2011. Updated December 21, 2011.
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