Honest Conversations with Wendy

Dirty Water

IT'S BALL SEASON in the Cunningham household. Baseball for the boys, softball for the girl, coaching for dad, and juggling for mom. Any day of the week, whether it be a practice or a game, you can find me seated on those stiff wooden bleachers cheering for one of my kids.

Last night, as we rooted for my oldest son, I periodically scanned the surrounding area for my eleven-year-old daughter while she circled the field with friends at her side and a snow cone in her hand. Our town is small and safe, but there is still that tinge of panic when I look for her and can’t find her right away.

I’m sure she’s there, but … what if she’s not?

This thought has plagued every parent since the dawn of time. Even Mary faced this same fear as she searched the caravan for her adolescent Jesus. Where was He? Was He with His dad? A family member? I imagine as she grew more frantic her internal struggle went from attempting to calm herself down to picturing all the horrendous things that could have already become of her beloved son. Scholars believe this story is included in the Bible so we can see that Jesus understood He was the Son of God from a young age. I’m convinced it’s there to comfort us mamas. Even Mary lost Jesus, and He turned out just fine.

As a kid growing up in the 80s, I remember leaving the house on my bike—no cell phone, no GPS locator, leaving behind no list of friends I’d be with—just living my best life. I’m sure my mom worried, but things were different then. She certainly wasn’t concerned I’d be shot by another kid at school. I doubt she wondered whether someone was suggesting to me that perhaps I was really a boy trapped in a girl’s body.

And I don’t think she feared I’d decide my preferred pronouns were “demon” or “ze.”

What happened? How did we get here? Why is the world so scary?

I’m reminded of the second chapter of Kings when the men of the city came to Elisha. He was freshly anointed, but the new prophet was already being put to the test. “The men of the city said to Elisha, ‘My lord can see that even though the city’s location is good, the water is bad and the land is unfruitful’” (verse 19).

Y’all, somehow, we’ve dirtied the water. It wasn’t always this way.

This country is amazing. Never before in history have we seen the lasting fruit of an experiment like our democratic republic. Freedom and liberty are ours to enjoy because God was at its foundation. Even an atheist would be hard-pressed to disagree the great success of our nation is due in part, if not in full, to our Judeo-Christian values anchoring us to a higher purpose. And ironically, this has made us so comfortable that we have the luxury of worrying about whether men can, in fact, become pregnant. Some countries worry about their kids starving to death but not us. No, America has got bigger fish to fry.

The location is good, but the fruit that once was abundant has died on the vine.

Elisha had a plan to clean the water, to purify the source of life. Humans can go weeks without food, but only days without water. Elisha’s method was sound, and it’s the same plan God has for us today.

“[Elisha] replied, ‘Bring me a new bowl and put salt in it’” (verse 20). The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. The Church is wandering frighteningly close to insanity. It’s time that we get a new bowl. What we’re doing—or maybe what we’re not doing—is not working.

When I look around, I wonder how much of modern culture—if any—has been influenced by the Church. Sadly, there are several places I can point to where the Church has been influenced by modern culture. And as we’re slipping further away from God’s order, so many of us are sitting back wondering where God is in all of it. Perhaps we’re looking for a pillar in the sky to guide us forward, or a Red Sea exit strategy to get us back on track. But God says in Isaiah 43:19, “I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

The new bowl is Jesus. When we bring Him to the cultural water, it will be cleansed.

“After they had brought him [a new bowl], Elisha went out to the spring, threw salt in it, and said, ‘This is what the LORD says: ‘I have healed this water. No longer will death or unfruitfulness result from it’” (verse 21).

Jesus is the bowl. We are the salt (Matthew 5:13).

Together, we can heal the water.

Not because we are powerful, but because He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

It’s time for radical change in our nation. Not just politically. I’m talking spiritually. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House, it matters Who’s in the hearts of the people. Can you even imagine what this place would look like if we humbled ourselves before God and went where He called, did what He commanded, and let go of what He took away? If we were just willing to be the salt, we could be the difference.

Salt is healing. The best thing for a cut on your foot is to dip it in the ocean. A sore throat is made well with a little saltwater gargle. And an Epsom salt bath is life to aching muscles. Salt makes sick things well. We have the Holy Spirit alive inside us. We have the power and authority to heal in Jesus’ name. The Church can do a mighty work of restoration in our world if we’d be willing to name that which is truly sick.

Salt adds flavor. Whoever said the Church is just about rules, laws, limits, and restrictions has never walked in the freedom of Christ. It is an amazing time to be a Christian—let us not shy away but rather step in. Never in my life have I felt more filled with purpose and calling. The Church is not dull and boring as compared to what the world is offering. That’s a lie. The enemy only has smoke and mirrors. The true flavor of life is found in salvation.

Salt nourishes. It’s rich in trace minerals that the body needs. Salt helps us stay hydrated and is an important part of our electrolyte balance. It sure does seem to me that culture could use some nourishment and balance. We’ve got to be the ones to bring it because we’re the ones who have it. We have Jesus. We have exactly what the world is so desperately searching for—soul nourishment.

Salt is valuable. In the old days, salt was an important bartering tool. If you didn’t have salt, you weren’t able to keep and store meat. Salt worked like currency. Faith works the same way. Faith is the currency of heaven and, Church, we’ve won the lottery. God gave us bank cards to hand out. What are we waiting for?

Why are we looking to Him to do something when He’s already done everything required?

We know that fear, not faith, is the constant of humanity these days. We can see that our culture is sick and in desperate need of healing. And we know the world offers nothing in the way of wellness. Jesus is the new bowl we need to bring to the water’s edge. And you and I, we’re the salt—infused with the Holy Spirit of God—that has been poured out. It’s our job, our calling, to not just mix into the cultural waters, but to cleanse them.

“This is what the LORD says: ‘I have healed this water. No longer will death or unfruitfulness result from it.’” //

~ until next month, Wendy

IMAGINE FALLING ASLEEP to the pitter patter of rain on the roof. Your eyes drift shut, but not for long. The storm outside now sounds like a freight train attempting an entrance through your window, threatening to carry your house off its very foundation. You wish to open your eyes a second time and wake up from this bad dream. My heart goes out to the folks of eastern Kentucky because, for them, this was not a bad dream. It was a nightmare come to life.

You may remember the record-breaking flood that claimed 42 lives in parts of Missouri and eastern Kentucky, among other nearby areas, last July. I traveled down to Letcher County, KY, the hardest hit area, to talk to some folks and see the extent of the damage for myself. Some locals likened the flood to “Hurricane Katrina, but in the mountains.” They weren’t exaggerating.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says the entire flooding event broke the $1 billion dollar threshold in damage. According to the Mountain Eagle, a local news source, 13,246 Kentucky homes were damaged, 19% of which were in Letcher County alone. “Researchers estimated that it would cost [around $450 million to $1 billion] to repair or replace homes damaged or destroyed by the flood,” says Rick Childress of the Lexington HeraldLeader. And this is only in Kentucky, let alone the other affected states. Twenty Kentucky counties received flood damage. A cluster of seven of those counties were hit the hardest, and the small town of Neon in Letcher County violently received the worst of the worst.

My face was glued to the window of the truck as I was taxied around the county, through small towns and past whole communities tucked away in the hollers. The trash and debris strewn along the creek banks, many vacant buildings, blown out windows, temporary campers used for housing, some irreparable buildings— these were only an echo of the destruction that had swept through Central Appalachia seven months ago. We met Andrea Taylor in her hometown of Whitesburg at the Pine Mountain Grill for some delicious southern cooking. She’s a friendly local woman who’s been involved in recovery efforts since day one. Over breakfast, she shared bits and pieces of her story and the painstakingly slow progress made since the flood. I’ll share more on that later.

We continued our tour and arrived at Neon’s makeshift city hall, one minute away from the damaged original location. Here we met Allen Bormes, Chief of the Neon PD. He was warm-hearted and cordial, eager to lend a hand—something he’s been doing a lot of lately. The heavy events of the past months have taken a toll on him. But not only him. He said that every person in the area suffers, to some extent, from PTSD. We took our seats, and he described what it’s like to stare death in the face.

Chief Bormes’ Story

The day of the flood, everyone was expecting some heavy rainfall, and flash floods are nothing new to the people of Letcher County. “This little town has had water in it before. It’ll get four or five feet deep and go away in an hour or so, and that’s that,“ said Allen, who lives in Jenkins, a few minutes away from Neon. “We get flash flood warnings constantly. [If] you cry wolf enough, nobody pays attention.” He was clearly frustrated at the alert system when he added, “Half of my house got the warnings on their phones in Spanish. Nobody in my house is Spanish.” Some people in the area got no alert at all. Even if Letcher County had received adequate warning, nothing could have fully prepared them for what was about to take place.

The menacing thunderstorms unleashed their fury during the early morning hours of July 28. From 12–6am, six inches of water dumped from the sky in streams. The steep hollers that many call home turned into drainage ditches. “I’ve been through hurricanes, I’ve been through tornadoes,” said Allen. “I’ve never seen rain like that. If we were standing just four feet apart in that rain, we would not see each other. If I turned a flashlight on, the water dispersed the light so much, I couldn’t see the ground. You had to scream to hear through the rain.” Within the first hour of rainfall, the road was covered in 1 ½ feet of water. Andrea had told me earlier, “When we were standing on our porch, it looked like we were standing on a boat dock.” Within one day, the north fork of the Kentucky River had risen from a slightly high four feet to over 20 feet, smashing the 1957 flood record by at least five feet.

Allen then told me about his family. Before the cellphones and power went out, “The last word that we’d had from [my wife’s] brother who lives in Burdine was his wife saying…” His words trailed off, and there was a long pause as he choked back tears. “It’s hard to even [repeat]. But she said, ‘I think we’re gonna drown.’” By her tone of voice, Allen knew she had resigned and accepted the fact that they were all going to die. “[That was] probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to hear a person say.” But thank the Lord, death did not come.

He then described how his relatives fled their house. Through chest-high water, his brother-in-law reached a telephone pole and hauled his family to safety with an extension cord. As he was pulling his wife through the water, the neighbor’s porch broke off. They were forced to cut and retie the cord to let the massive chunk of debris float dangerously between them. They escaped with their lives and the soaked pajamas on their backs.

Allen nearly reached despair during the night, angry at himself for his inability to help anyone else, but once the rain finally subsided around 8:30 a.m., he and his two officers took to the flooded streets.

As they traveled from house to battered house, Dustin, Allen’s newest officer, came across a man yelling for help from his pickup trapped in an eddy. Allen interrupted his own story. “Listen, if this don’t raise a hair on your neck, I don’t know what will.” In full gear—vest, belt, everything, none of which floats—Dustin swam 3035 yards to the swirling truck. He told the man, “Let’s go.

We gotta get you out of here.” The man looked at Dustin. “I can’t swim.” “Grab onto that handle on the back of my vest. I’ll swim for the both of us.” So, with the added weight, Dustin swam the man all the way back to safety in full gear. Allen likened the feat to having two cinder blocks wrapped around your shoulders with a guy on your back, all while trying to swim 30 yards through moving flood waters. God only knows if there were angels swimming with Dustin.

Allen was dumbfounded when he finally made it into Neon for the first time after the flood. “Disbelief was the understatement of the year.” In our separate conversations, Allen and Andrea each described their towns as warzones without bullet holes. Andrea said, “There were cars on top of houses ... a Dodge Durango was up in a tree, and one house was [several hundred yards] off its foundation, sitting sideways on the creek bank.” The following days blurred together for Chief Bormes as he worked with little rest to help where possible, making sure people were safe, attending to the ill and disabled, writing welfare checks, even building a makeshift bridge using a borrowed piece of culvert. In the weeks following the flood, intense heat turned the mud into toxic dust full of old coal mine runoff, heavy metals, and sewage. Months went by, and winter threatened the lives of displaced people. Thankfully none froze to death.

Allen has since fixed his home, at least enough to live in it again. Some of his family is staying with him until they can rebuild their totaled home. The recovery progress has been far slower than they hoped for, and the people of Letcher County have begun to wonder if the help they need will ever come.

The Current State of Things

Appalachia is full of tight-nit communities. They are constantly looking out for one another, and when a local disaster happens, the communities form a support network. This flood, however, wiped out their entire support network. Every community in the area was hit hard. This has forced Letcher County to rely heavily on outside assistance, much of which has slowed to a snail’s pace.

Andrea told how the initial relief efforts of the National Guard, FEMA, and The Red Cross fell through due to incompetency and drug use among the displaced people. That pushed the masses into campers and tents where they then had to combat theft. Many people are still living in state-loaned campers on a monthly reapplication basis, or in sheds turned into temporary tiny houses. According to Andrea’s estimation, barely a quarter of the displaced people are back into their homes. In other words, roughly 7,500 homes in Letcher County still need rehab! Some are completely ruined, others are uninhabitable with mold, and most homes still don’t have working sewer systems. Disaster relief businesses and insurance companies are burdening the already poor people with unaffordable costs. It will take 2-5 years for Neon and Letcher County to fully recover, and that’s with the outside help that they only dream of.

Despite the overwhelming lack of help, there are a few people on the ground doing good work. Jeff Sim, founder of Heritage Ministries, has been traveling over the mountain from Lynch nearly every day since July to help with cleanup and rebuilding. He accommodates work crews that periodically come to help and has done much work himself. Andrea and my hosts spoke very highly of him. According to his website (heritagemin.org), “When Heritage Ministries was first founded [in 2005], Jeff and Linda knew that home repair was going to be a focal point of the ministry. God had called them to eastern KY to help people, and with a background in construction, doing home repair was natural for them. Heritage Ministries uses mission teams to subsidize labor, materials, and/or funding for home repair projects. It is the belief of Heritage Ministries that helping our neighbors and showing the love of Christ is the best way to minister to them.” This poses an opportunity for you, dear reader.

God’s children are called to love Him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love their neighbors as themselves. That’s a tall order. With so many disasters and needs everywhere, “Which one is the one that God wants me to contribute to?” you may ask. I’ve often asked that of myself too, so I can relate. But let’s not miss the trees for the forest. (Yes, I intentionally said that backward.) Don’t worry so much about the forest of “global disaster relief” that you miss the withering tree in front of you. God doesn’t want us to touch every need. He wants us to be faithful to Him. Are you being faithful? “By this we know love, that Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18) If the Lord is impressing it on your heart, Jeff Sim and Letcher County may just get an answer to their prayers. //

How to Help:

1. Volunteer workers! (With/without construction experience.)

2. Finances (100% will be used to rebuild housing as quickly as possible.)

3. Construction materials www.heritagemin.org

4. Pray for the victims’ anxiety and PTSD, for the elderly, and that God would send help. Please direct all finances, questions, and voluntary labor to Jeff. If you’re sending labor, contact him at least 2-3 weeks in advance.

Seth exists near Killbuck, Ohio. I suspect if you’d ask him, he’d tell you the most notable thing about his life would be the fact that Jesus has set him free from addiction! He is eternally grateful for that and is a changed work in progress. The things that occupy his time include hanging out with his wonderful friends and family, singing, studying Scripture, helping the music team at his local church, spikeball, art, sometimes hunting, thinking (sometimes too much), eating, sleeping, and more. He’s been blessed to work with the Plain Values team since 2016 as a graphic designer and digital media producer. He’s also single: (330-600-9524).