The Billy Graham Rapid Response Team has deployed 19 crisis-trained chaplains into West Virginia to offer emotional and spiritual care after the state was impacted by deadly flooding.
The Rapid Response Team’s Mobile Ministry Center also has been deployed as chaplains are offering a ministry of presence alongside the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s sister ministry Samaritan’s Purse. The chaplains are serving in Kanawha and Greenbrier counties.
Devastating flash floods hit the area on June 23 and the water levels rose quickly.
Twenty-six people reportedly were killed. Thousands of others were displaced.
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency for 44 of West Virginia’s 55 counties as homes, businesses, even chunks of the interstate were washed away by the incessant rainfall. Some flooding has taken place in Kanawha County, which houses West Virginia’s State Capitol of Charleston. The Kanawha River runs directly in front of the State Capitol building where Franklin Graham held a Decision America Tour stop in May.
Six of the Rapid Response Team’s 10 deployments this year have been for flooding. The most recent deployments were made to the Houston, Texas, area, which experienced two bouts of flooding in 2016.
Thank you for keeping West Virginia in prayer during this time.
