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“Maybe two weeks after the flood,
we were helping pick up the debris
all over [a] yard… I also learned how
to install insulation, and spent one
Saturday in a crawlspace installing
insulation,” Blest said. “You have to
be very flexible, you never know what
you’re going to do.”
As part of the service project,
sophomore Alicia Heatherly spent
her Saturday underneath a house
ripping out flooded air ducts. It was
dirty work, and she confesses that
God had to change her attitude at
the beginning of the day.
“When I first got there, [my thought]
was, ‘I should have changed my
pants, I don’t want to get these
dirty,’” Heatherly admitted. “My
thought was, ‘I want to serve, but
I want to be in my comfort zone.’ I
realized my selfish thinking. I am so
blessed to have everything I need,
and I was thinking about my pants.”
Heatherly changed her mindset
about the day, and gladly spent the
morning ripping out water-filled air
ducts and ruining her jeans.
“My pants got really dirty that day,”
she said. “I prayed, ‘Lord, I’m giving
this to you. Do my pants matter over
helping someone? Does the loss
of one pair of jeans matter over all
this family has lost?’ Then I prayed,
‘Father, give us more opportunity to
serve these people.’”
Heatherly says the biggest blessing
of the day was forming a relationship
with the grateful homeowner, Kelli
Powell, who is a single mother of four
children.
“It was really neat to have an
opportunity to just talk [to her] and
say, ‘How are you doing with this?
How has this affected you? Are you
doing all right?’” Heatherly said.
“She just started to tear up and say,
‘You all are just angels, you’re angels
from God, and I can’t believe you’re
doing this for me.’”
The flood nearly devastated Powell’s
home. Several large sinkholes formed
in her yard, and the house filled with
two feet of water. She lost a washer,
dryer, and several precious family
possessions.
“A total of five students, on two
separate occasions, came to offer
help,” Powell said. “All of these
loving individuals put such a beautiful
and strong loving impression on my
heart. I have been overwhelmed
with gratitude for the abundance of
support during such an emotionally
strenuous time.”
As the day drew to a close, the
students who were working at
Powell’s home gathered to pray over
her family.
“I prayed over her that God would
continue to breathe in her strength,
that He would continue to hold her
up and that she would lean on Him to
be her strength and get her through
the next days,” Heatherly said. “She
cried, and made me cry. It was neat
to see how God can use a flood to
open doors.”
Though the floods are months past,
Blest and Heatherly encourage
CIU students and the Columbia
community to remember that there
is still work to be done; many families
are still rebuilding.
“We still have the opportunity to
help and show love and to give our
time to serve like Christ served us,”
Heatherly said.
Heatherly changed her mind-set about the day, and
gladly spent the morning ripping out water-filled air
ducts and ruining her jeans.
A familiar intersection under
water: flooding at the bottom
of the hill on Monticello Road
near CIU.
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CIU Today
www.ciu.eduA 1,000-YEAR FLOOD