Our Beginning

September 27th 2024 Asheville North Carolina was ravaged by a disaster. Hurricane Helene had made it's presence known. With a damage cost soaring to more than 78.7 billion dollars, and an expectancy to take years to recover. After Western North Carolina was hit the storm proceeded to travel 275 miles north; here to Wilmington Ohio. It was this catastrophe that brought the idea for Crown & Cross Ministries alive.

The hurricane came through on a Friday and for us the damage was minor when compared. The entirety of Ohio had our electricity restored within 6 days, where as some of those living in the hill country of North Carolina and Tennessee were without power for months. With the storm affecting us on Friday by the time Monday rolled around life for most of us was all but back to normal. As I kept seeing more and more post on social media from news outlets and peoples personal testimonies about the hurricane God put it on my heart that something had to be done. So on Monday I started to make calls, to see if there was anyone already working on plans to help in some way. Everyone I talked to had a similar sentiment, "we want to help, but there is nothing we can do right now." For most people that is true, government and other larger organizations need to be the ones on ground zero to keep things orderly. For me though waiting wasn't an option, God had put this urgency in my heart. I had thought about giving it a few weeks and joining with another group to go and help with clean up, but God said no. From this point I had no clue what I would do, my reach was limited. I drive a sedan, I have no way of moving things or have a vehicle that can be used for utility. So I prayed. Talking with a couple of friends a new idea was hatched. We could rent a box truck.

By the time that Tuesday had come we had began to form our plan. We would gather the supplies we could load up into a truck and distribute those supplies down south, but with this came our next obstacle. What was our plan for when we arrived? What were we really walking in to? None of us had done humanitarian work before so we did not have the slightest clue on how to set up. We were determined to do something though, and there was a mental battle of trying to find a way to help without getting in the way of ongoing cleanup efforts being as unexperienced as we were. Asheville had national attention, I knew that they were going to get the immediate help they needed so I turned my attention to the surrounding area. Looking on google maps I found the town of Banner Elk North Carolina roughly 55 miles north east of Asheville. It was surrounded by flood warnings, and most of the roads were a bright red. I knew that going down to Banner Elk and simply passing supplies out from the back of the truck was not a good idea having never done this before, so I prayed again. I prayed for wisdom on how to truly help, and not put ourselves or others at an unnecessary risk. Then it hit me; a local church. They would know the area they would know who truly needed help and how to get it to them. So while I was looking at the map I started to find churches.

I called one church and the line was completely dead so I tried another and it was the same thing. The phone didn't even ring. I got a little discouraged, but I tried a third and the phone rang but no one answered. On my fourth call a pastor answered. I told him who I was and what I was looking to do, and his response added fuel to make our organization a reality. He appreciated the sentiment, but his congregation was mostly composed of the elderly and they wouldn't be able to handle the physical strain from distributing supplies. He also told me it was not a good idea to try and make it to Banner Elk because of road damage. I got the phone number to a church in Elizabethton Tennessee from him and wished him the best. Elizabethton was about 20 miles west of Banner Elk and still 55 miles north of Asheville. Calling that church the secretary put me into contact with an elder, and they provided me with a list of supplies that would be needed. With that list we would be able to scale this up and get more people involved, and that is what we did.

By the time Wednesday came we had a decent idea of how we were going to do this. We started telling our friends and family. they started telling their friends, and soon we had a good group of people rallying behind us. For the next two days we kept collecting donations from people and stored them in our garage and we kept spreading the word. Using social media we posted in a couple of Facebook groups about what we were going to do, and the support flooded in. A lot of people could not support the relief effort with physical good, but everyone gave what they could, with donations coming in from all the way out in Nevada. The movement had gotten far bigger than any one of us, and I was grateful for it. It was one thing to get the truck, it's a completely different thing to fill it. It was in this that I could see God moving and working it all together. Then we got to Friday, with Saturday being delivery day that meant Friday was collection day.

A friend and I started our Friday off early heading over to Harrison Ohio to pick up the box truck and some more donations that he had secured out that way. Making our way back we stopped at several other places. All in all we had enough donations to fill the box truck up, and that to me was incredible. My wife spent the day collecting donations from around Wilmington and brought them to our house, and my grandmother from her work. I had to go into work so my wife and grandma finished loading the truck for us. All of us that were going worked second shift so our plan was very straight forward, get off work and leave.

Around 3:30 in the morning on Saturday October 5th we did our final check and headed out. The drive down went extremely well and we arrived in Elizabethton sometime close to noon. We had actually made contact with a second church that ran a food bank and were able top bring them some perishable items that were donated to us. Elizabethton for the most part was sparred from the storm. The bridge in the middle of town was washed out, but most of town did not suffer serious damage.

The church had an unloading are outside, and were sorting through goods inside. People from the community and surrounding areas were able to come and get supplies as needed. There was talk of the church working with other locals who were better equipped and knew the area to take supplies into the more damaged areas, like Banner Elk. This movement to bring hope to people was much larger than any individual, and it was beautiful to see the community coming together to make it happen.

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"It was an eye opening experience, being in a position to help others in need was a truly rewarding experience. Going somewhere far and meeting new people made me realize that we are truly all one in the same.”

-Sinjin A; on his reflection of the event-

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As much work and time as it took us to load our truck up, at the end of the day we got to go home, back to our regular lives. For the people of Tennessee and North Carolina an entire year later life is still correcting itself. This is the mission of Crown & Cross Ministries. We want to be there when the headlines fade and the cameras are gone. To restore infrastructure it will take years, how long to restore lives? There are still people that need our help, and not just down south. Everywhere you look there is a need, and with your help we want to meet it. When disaster strikes we want it to be an opportunity for hope, but that takes more than just us. It takes you as well. I know most people want to help, they just don't know how. With our organization we give you the opportunity, by the grace of God. Thank you for reading, we will be moving into bigger and more detailed goals soon, we look forward to achieving them with you.

God Bless;

Joshua George