In this Do Justice episode, Chris Orme talks with World Renew Disaster Response Services Director, Chris Gibson. Gibson, with a background in youth ministry, discusses DRS's 50-year mission of bringing help and hope to disaster-affected communities through long-term, collaborative recovery. He shares a powerful story from Rolling Fork, Mississippi, highlighting intergenerational service and the Kingdom of God in action. Gibson also addresses common challenges, stressing the importance of being invited into communities and serving the overlooked.

This is a lightly edited transcript from Season 10 Episode 6. 

Orme: Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of Do Justice. My name is Chris Orme and today I'm super stoked and excited and happy to be joined by my friend, my colleague, Chris Gibson. Chris has a bachelor's degree in English from Calvin University, way back in 1995 when cargo pants and frosted tips were all the rage [laughs]. Chris started out in youth ministry and youth pastoring. Since 2018, Chris has served with World Renew's Disaster Response Services and most recently, Chris is now the director of Disaster Response Service at World Renew. Chris Gibson, welcome, my friend.

Gibson: Thank you very much, Chris, it's great to see you and it's good to be here.

Orme: It is good to be together. I think that most times we've hung out it's been around a campfire and there's been a guitar in hand, but this is fun, too.

Gibson: It is! And good music. I have to correct you on one of your introductions—it was 1985 when I started at Calvin College. You just added ten years to my life.

Orme: What did you do, start when you were ten? Come on. [laughs]

Gibson: Yes, absolutely. I was a brilliant child.

Orme: Well, I stand corrected. Welcome, again. Chris, let's dive right in. We're talking about Disaster Response Services and we know a lot of people know about this work, but there might be some in our audience who aren't familiar with World Renew's DRS, or Disaster Response Service. Tell us a little bit about the work that you do.

Gibson: You bet. World Renew Disaster Response Services—DRS, as it's commonly known, at least in-house—has been around for a little over 50 years. The work that we do, we like to say we like to bring both help and hope to communities in the aftermath of terrible things that happen. The primary work that we do involves communities that have been hit by hurricanes or floods, wildfires (as we've seen recently in Manitoba, but also out in Los Angeles back in January). The primary way that we do that is in long-term recovery by putting volunteers from churches, from colleges and universities, onto job sites to work literally side-by-side with partners who live in those communities to help people rebuild their homes, restore their lives. The bringing help part is what everybody thinks of. The bringing hope part is just embedded in our DNA. We recognize that in the aftermath of these terrible disasters, there are a lot of people that get overlooked. There are a lot of people who don't have the resources to recover on their own. World Renew Disaster Response Services strives with all of our heart to not be the organization that charges in saying, "Here we are to save the day." What we do, is we network and connect with partners on the ground, partners who are made up of community leaders, perhaps faith leaders, pastors, teachers, in many communities there are emergency managers. We find ways to connect with them, and some of those communities invite us to come in and work alongside them in the long-term. By long-term, unfortunately, I mean sometimes 2-5 years in the aftermath of these big disasters. That's how long it seems to be taking these days.

Orme: I love how you pointed out the collaboration. One of the things that we talk about mostly internally at World Renew, but we have this thing called the World Renew Way. We talk a lot about the World Renew Way. Whether it's our long-term community development work internationally, whether it's domestic disaster response and rehabilitation or IDR (international disaster response), we have that collaborative, networking ethos. That's who we are as an organization.

Gibson: Absolutely. When something terrible happens, we're watching it on the news like everyone else. Our network of volunteer regional managers, our staff, our volunteer leaders, we are automatically starting to think, if it's a community we've served in before, who do we already know? Who do we need to connect with? And if it's in an area that's less familiar, recognizing that they key to us providing any service that's going to last long-term is finding who those folks are who can help us discover the needs, meet the people, and gather the resources to provide the best long-term help. That networking, that relational piece, is in many ways way more important than the swinging of hammers. That comes much later.

Orme: I was mentioning before, you and I have spent some time sitting around a campfire and you're a great story-teller. No pressure, but I'm going to invite you to share a story with us about a time in your work with Disaster Response Service where you were really astonished about the impact that World Renew is having in an area or community affected by disaster.

Gibson: So, on March 24, 2023 I woke up and it was the wedding day for my daughter. I woke up anticipating a big day, poured my first of many cups of coffee that day, turned on the news, and saw that Rolling Fork, Mississippi had been leveled by a tornado overnight. Rolling Fork, Mississippi is an incredibly impoverished town in the Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest parts of the United States. Instantly, when I saw that news broadcast, I knew where I was going to be spending the better part of the next two years of my life concentrating on. There is a long, deep, and rich history with Christian Reformed congregations and ministries and World Renew in Rolling Fork, Mississippi and six miles south in Cary, Mississippi and it goes way back to the seventies when Dr. Peter Boelens began a health clinic there and eventually The Luke Society was born out of that ministry. 

When I heard that a tornado had hit in Rolling Fork, first of all, I knew exactly where it was. Second of all, I knew that there was the opportunity for us to dive in and serve because of long, long history and collaboration and partnership. I also knew that I had a partner within the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church, an organization that does tremendous work in coordinating volunteers and helping homeowners. So, we immediately launched into a plan—way faster than we normally do—and within a week we had already decided: we're going to be here. This is how we're going to help. I'm going to skip forward almost a year from that initial time to a Christian Reformed Congregatio—Orland Park Christian Reformed Church on the south side of Chicago—Orland Park Christian Reformed Church began building brand new homes—whole houses, from the ground up—over a five or six week period that had begun at the year after Hurricane Katrina. In fact, just a few weeks ago in March, they finished their twentieth home that that church has done all on their own. But in the aftermath of this tornado back in 2023, I knew that we needed to connect all of these people and all of these pieces. In March of 2024, one week short of the one year anniversary of the night that that tornado hit, I was standing in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, Orland Park Christian Reformed Church was finishing the final touches on this brand new home that was built for a couple whose home had been destroyed. Unfortunately it had been destroyed when the home next to it was flipped over, killing the occupant, their next-door neighbor, crashed into their home, and wiped out their home as well. So just short of a year, an army of volunteers, a massive amount of collaboration, communication, and coordination—all of those things that we believe are at the center of what World Renew likes to do—I'm standing in the front yard with this group of retirees from Orland Park Church who had just finished. I'm also standing in front of a group of Dordt University students who spent their spring break working alongside these older volunteers learning skills and serving with compassion during a time when they could have been on the beach in Panama City, Florida. Choosing to use their vacation and their spring break to help people, the Dordt students got to the glamorous work of home reconstruction by crawling around in a three-foot crawl space installing insulation, covered in tyvek suits in 75 degree, sunny weather. 

The thing that I wanted to talk about with this, though, is that not only did we make a difference in the lives of this couple who were able, that day, to receive the keys to their new house, but I think I got a vision of a piece of what the Kingdom of God must look like in seeing these incredibly experienced, incredible talented and gifted older volunteers literally walking side-by-side with these younger college students and teaching them not just about home reconstruction, but how to live their faith in such a way that it makes a difference in the real world. The smiles on those students' faces, the joy of seeing the homeowners get their keys to this new home, recognizing that the next week when the community would mourn the anniversary of this terrible thing, that this family would have a brand new home to live in in part because of our incredible partners from Orland Park Church and Dordt University. I was a youth pastor for a lot of years, Chris, as you know, and to see this intergenerational mix and to see that vision of the Kingdom of God come into play with these two groups that didn't know each other at all, in this strange community a long way from home, that was powerful to observe.

Orme: It's such a beautiful picture. I've heard so many stories like that of just intergenerational participation in the work of restoration, in the work of bearing witness to God's goodness. It's a beautiful picture, but [both laugh] you and I are both blessed. We get to talk to a lot of different people in a lot of different contexts and folks come with a lot of different notions of how work should be done. I think most people are well-meaning and ask good questions, but if you met someone and they started a conversation with you, saying, "I've heard that sending people to a disaster zone can cause problems." How would you respond to that?

Gibson: I would say they're absolutely right, it can cause problems. One hundred percent. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and its historic and unprecedented ravaging of Western North Carolina, an army of well-intentioned people tried to get in. They tried to get across bridges that weren't strong enough for their vehicles and they tried to bring aid and they tried to bring stuff. I could talk about the stuff that they tried to bring for a long time. At the same time all of this spontaneous volunteerism was happening, World Renew was in direct conversation with people from North Carolina. FEMA brought together a call that brought together the voluntary agencies that were having the most direct impact and we have learned over the years that being invited to come into a community is absolutely crucial. At that meeting, Chris, we were told by the head of the North Carolina Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, "Please, right now, don't send any people. This community, this area is being inundated by volunteers who are coming in to do good and they're getting in the way of first responders," who, quite frankly, were still looking to pull bodies from the rubble. 

That being said, in the weeks and months that followed, as the bridges were reconstructed, as the water was turned on, as the resources began to open up, we sought like crazy to find a way to serve in western North Carolina. You can imagine, being on the receiving end of lots of phone calls yourself and lots of emails, how many incredible people from Christian Reformed and Reformed churches were reaching out saying, "We want to go. We want to help." We kept saying, "They're not ready. They're not ready." And at the same time we were holding people back, we were reaching out to all of our contacts saying, "We want to help. What's the best way for us to help?" Turns out, we thought we would be called to go to western North Carolina. Western North Carolina, because of its high presence in the media, received all of the volunteer assistance that they could handle in those early couple of months. 

After trying like crazy for seven weeks I found a community in the southern part of the state of West Virginia—Bluefield, West Virginia—from one of our old partners from flooding work that we had done. Bluefield, West Virginia is right off of Interstate 77, if you've ever driven down toward Charlotte, North Carolina. Just before you go through the tunnel and cross the border into Virginia, Bluefield is right there. The thundering herd of volunteers—thousands of them—drove right straight past Bluefield in their hurry to get to all the places that were in the news. Bluefield had hundreds of people with hundreds and thousands of trees down across their property. By waiting until we were invited, we found a community that had been overlooked and we were able to work there. I think we sent three two-week teams down there. We helped dozens and dozens of people and it met our definition of looking for communities that were overlooked or under-served. These folks did not receive assistance, they didn't get any disaster declaration. I just recently saw a book that talked about all of the work from Hurricane Helene and the state of West Virginia was not even mentioned in that. So we were able to go in, completely in cooperation with the City Manager from the city of Bluefield and from the people in the West Virginia VOAD (which stands for Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster). Those folks coordinated us and steered up to people who perhaps had ten to fifteen trees on their property. The average person we helped was probably in their sixties or seventies, unable physically to do the work themselves and for sure unable to pay the $3,000-$5,000 per tree that it would have cost if they had had to hire a tree service company. So we were able to do tens of thousands of dollars worth of assistance in that case, but part of that was being patient and waiting until we were invited in and we had somebody who was actually ready to receive us.

Orme: That's a beautiful picture, again, Chris. I can proudly say that I know where Bluefield is.

Gibson: Nice!

Orme: I had dinner at an Applebees in Bluefield because, little known fact, the Bluefield Blue Jays are like a deep farm team for my beloved Toronto Blue Jays, so I've been to Bluefield and I know where it is [laughs].

Gibson: I didn't know that at all.

Orme: Chris, I think another great joy of the work that we get to do is to help people understand, because I know what you mean when something happens, when a disaster occurs, I am continuously overwhelmed by the generosity and the willingness of our donors, of our supporters, of our volunteers. Within hours, within minutes, calling us, e-mailing, "What do we do? How do we do it? When?" We get to have that conversation, so I guess the follow-up question for you is: how do you keep people from getting confused and discouraged about how they can make a difference in the aftermath of a disaster? In the wake of all of that energy and all of that desire to help, how do you steer it? How do you help them plug it in at an appropriate time?

Gibson: In some ways, what we do and what we've done specifically in the wake of Hurricane Helene is we recognize and we affirm—the fact that people want to help is a wonderful thing. It's a compassionate heart, it's a desire to make a difference. What we've tried to do in the case of Hurricane Helene, knowing that they weren't ready and that just a few hours away in eastern North Carolina we had partners who were still working on Hurricane Florence. That was six years old when Hurricane Helene hit. The partners in eastern North Carolina had spent six years building up housing facilities, doing the case management necessary, arranging the resources so that they could help people who were impacted six years ago. A good chunk of my conversations were, "The folks that you want to help now will be ready for you to help next year. Would you consider helping these folks who have been waiting for six years?" Some of them are living displaced, with multiple families living with a grandma or grandpa or a cousin and some of them, quite frankly, and I've seen this in the last couple of years, living in moldy homes for four or five years, waiting for assistance. 

Some of the people that I was able to connect with on that level understood that the greater way for them to serve was to try to get the ones taken care of from Hurricane Florence first. Let's get those people taken care of because they're ready and they have the resources and they have the experience, recognizing that next year we can go to Asheville or Spruce Pine, North Carolina or Bat Cave, North Carolina. I think that's the coolest name of any city we've ever worked in. It's not easy, though! Because people really want to go, and the news media tends to blow these things up big, which sparks interest and compassion but probably raises some expectations that are unrealistic as far as what people can do. The solutions are long-term solutions in all of these cases. 

I'm going to give you an example. My Grandmother and my dad, they lost their home to a tornado on Palm Sunday in 1965. It was a small Ohio town. The tornado came in on a Sunday morning and took out the town, took out the Methodist church, and my dad and my Uncle Mike got down just before the tornado hit into their Wizard of Oz storm shelter. When they came out their life was forever changed. Until the day my grandma died, when I spoke at her funeral, we talked about her life before the tornado and after the tornado. My grandmother had insurance and my grandmother lived in a community where people jumped right in to help out. Two really, really huge resources. In my home, next to my wood stove, I have a wood box that my grandfather made on the dedication of my grandmother's new home that the insurance money bought. The date on that is 1967. So even way back then in what some people like to refer to as the 'Good Ol' Days,' my grandmother, who had those two incredible things going for her—plenty of insurance money and community that stood by her and made sure her family was taken care of—she still had to wait two full years in the aftermath of, quite frankly, what was a very small disaster. If somebody would have to wait two years and they have those things lined up, think about what happens in the aftermath of a hurricane that impacts tens of thousands of people. Many of those people with no significant resources like what I just described from my grandmother. Those are the people that World Renew desires to serve. We go to those communities and we say, "Before we agree to partner, how are you going to prioritize the needs of those most vulnerable in this community? How are you going to help connect with those people so they don't get missed?"

Orme: In your work, Chris, how have you seen hope and abundance emerge in situations that seem defined by scarcity or crisis? I think you kind of pointed at it, there, but what jumps out as ways that hope and abundance emerge in these difficult situations?

Gibson: So, because I'm a people person I tend to see hope in people and in how people respond, and especially in how people charge in to see what they can do to help. I have a person in New Bern, North Carolina. Her name is Kristy Kulberg. She's the person who is in charge of this ministry that we do in New Bern. Kristy and Jeremy lived in New Bern and their home was nailed by Hurricane Florence. First and foremost Kristy and Jeremy are disaster survivors. The first people they saw to come help them was a high school youth group from a nearby church who came to muck out their house. From surviving this disaster and that initial response, and of course all the things that went with them having to rebuild their home and do all of that, Kristy has a heart for Christ and a deep desire to help her community that she also loves. Kristy became involved in a local recovery organization through an AmeriCorps funded position as Case Manager. As such, she got to hear and see stories and meet people in their homes or in what was left of their homes and that was six and a half years ago. In that time, I know that Kristy, as first a Case Manager and now as the head of the Craven County Disaster Recovery Organization, and then her husband as a retired 30-year Marine Corps veteran who now serves as the construction manager, they took their story that could have ended with just devastation and despair and they have morphed that into a ministry that has impacted hundreds and hundreds of families in eastern North Carolina and, quite frankly, at bare minimum, 500 World Renew Disaster Response Service volunteers who have served in that community for tens of thousands of hours. Each of those volunteers that comes in, they remember the people that they served, they remember the help that they do, but they always talk about Jeremy and Kristy's story and how they used this tragedy and they've taken all that they experienced as people who were impacted themselves and have poured it back into their communities. 

About a year before Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina, about six hours from Kristy's house in New Bern, Kristy was voted to be the chair of the North Carolina Voluntary Organization's Active in Disaster. So at the helm of this helping to coordinate in the midst of this unprecedented disaster, you have someone with a heart for Christ, someone with a heart for their neighbors, and someone who has actually lived through surviving a disaster herself. That's how that story has worked out. It gives me incredible hope to meet with her. I will never forget the time I met with Kristy and her team in the rotted out remains of a home for an 80 year-old woman in Craven County, North Carolina. After Hurricane Florence hit, that home had slight roof damage. So slight that this person was denied assistance—Disaster Recovery Assistance. It wasn't damaged enough. Well, she didn't get any assistance, she had no money to do anything to her home, and literally four years or five years later when I visited, that home was utterly rotted because the roof leaked, the mold got inside, and eventually that home was torn down. Kristy stayed faithful to this person for years, walked alongside her, did everything she possibly could to align resources, and eventually that person ended up with a brand new home built by a combination of World Renew volunteers from CRC and RCA churches, Baptist volunteers, and who knows who else. I think there were even some Quakers involved down there. That's the kind of thing I mean, that her own personal resilience rolled into the work that I believe God has called her to do.

Orme: Chris, thank you for spending the time with us. I could sit and talk with you for hours, but we'll get a chance to do that in the near future, I'm sure. But, thank you. For our dear listeners, our guest today has been Chris Gibson. Chris is the Director of Disaster Response Services with World Renew. Brother, thank you for taking the time and hanging out with us today.

Gibson: Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate the time and I hope that by listening to this podcast someone out there is encouraged to use the time and the talent that God has given them to potentially serve. It doesn't have to be on a disaster site in North Carolina, hundreds of miles away from home. Inevitably, somebody is walking through some disaster within each of our spheres of influence right now and I believe God calls us to be the light in that situation. Thank you very much for this time.