Church's LIFT response team helps recover from natural disasters with practicality, compassion

LIFT is a disaster response team affiliated with Crossroads Church in Jackson, and a number of its volunteers recently traveled to the Bootheel to assist in storm recovery efforts.

LIFT has 34 designated volunteers including three leaders -- Chad Craft, Scott Henderson and Matt Schamburg. The team provides relief for victims of disasters including debris clearance, mobile food and water delivery and what they call "compassion teams."

With the help of one of their mentor organizations -- Convoy of Hope (CoH), a faith-based organization helping with all stages of disaster relief -- they press on the importance of emotional relief. Craft said CoH has helped the team better understand "it's just as important to talk to the homeowner on the ground as it is to be up on their roof."

"It's important for the homeowner to be able to share their story, to describe what they've been through, that is part of the recovery and healing process," Craft said. "It's also great for the development of our team, because we can accommodate a larger skill set. We have volunteers who aren't able or aren't comfortable to get up on a roof, but they can sit down with a homeowner."

The team's outreach has grown over time from helping with relief in Southeast Missouri. Team members have branched out to other parts of the country helping with hurricane and tornado recovery.

"We've responded to several hurricanes. Tornado outbreaks further away in Tennessee and Mississippi," Craft said. "Then, we also have ongoing recovery efforts that we do in Puerto Rico. We've been there, this is our third year in Puerto Rico."

Going across the country and overseas, the team has seen all different kinds of destruction but the tornadoes spotted across the Kentucky and Tennessee area were the most recent standouts to the response team. Craft said the damage was "hard to comprehend."

"When we deal with tornadoes they're a little more localized. The damage is significant and impacts those families in a very dramatic way, but you don't see tornadoes over 200-mile damage areas often," Craft said. "That's something you would see in a hurricane. What we saw with this tornado which is such a long line of destruction, it was hard to comprehend."

Helping across the country has given team members different experiences with homeowners and observers. Schamburg said one of his most impactful experiences involved a pastor from a local church in Tennessee, when he called their presence a "Godsend."

"It was completely annihilated and within 10 minutes we knocked on doors, on a roof and started to tarp a house," Schamburg said. "A pastor from the local church came out there, introduced himself and he goes, 'The Lord told me I had to get over to this house and help this get a tarp on a roof. I didn't have the manpower, the tools, and when I pull up, you guys are out already tarping it."