The Story Of The Flood

This is an article that will be published in the Australian Christian Churches magazine Accent – I thought I would give you a sneak preview!

The reality of the situation didn’t hit me until a week later when I was explaining what, we as a church, had done during the recent Queensland floods. My listener, a nurse in an aged care facility, with ever-increasing shock on her face, then said, “Have you any idea what you have accomplished? You ran a nursing home from nothing. Who does that?”

It all started with a phone call. “Would the church be an evacuation centre for people in Ipswich affected by the floods?” It all sounded so noble, so worthy of a ‘tweet’. One hour later in pouring rain buses starting arriving full of elderly high care patients from three Aged Care Facilities who had been evacuated. They were disorientated, wet, scared and confused. One hundred and sixty five people and for the next five days and four nights they lived in our church facility.

To describe the next few days is beyond words. The old adage ‘you had to be there!’ applies. However imagine feeding, providing bedding, medical treatment, washing and cleaning these people for this period and starting from a position of no resources at all.

No food, no bedding, no supplies, no medication and most of all no experience. I knew we were in a little bit of hot water when the Red Cross representative who was supposed to be running the evacuation centre looked at the hordes of people arriving, then looked at me and said, “You’re in charge, congratulations!”

For the next few days we as a church had to source everything that related to the care of these beautiful people – many suffering from various ailments including dementia. Twenty four hour shifts of volunteers were set up, food sourced to feed not only the residents but also the volunteers, a medical centre and pharmacy established, bedding found, bathing and shower facilities erected, cold room brought in and volunteer rosters and meal planning created.

When I think of the volunteers from the church and the many that just turned up from the community and offered help I become emotional as I saw the church in action, as it should be – caring for the least of our society. Some of the volunteers including myself didn’t sleep for the first 32 hours as the enormity of the task ahead was realized and planning was urgently required. What had been achieved was the complete operation of a temporary aged care facility starting from scratch and reaching the point when many of the residents didn’t want to go home.

The Prime Minister Julia Gillard who visited the church in the midst of the floods said this in Parliament, ‘Pastor Mark Edwards, of Ipswich Region Community Church, opened his church as an evacuation centre and delayed the marriage of his daughter Gabrielle for a week, and tended the frail of three nursing homes in Ipswich.’

Yes – the postponement of my daughter’s wedding – well that is another story.

After the elderly residents moved out teams were sent from the church to clean homes and businesses in Ipswich. The church then commenced a food distribution centre, which is still operating today. Hundreds of food packages have been sent to needy families together with packages of electrical goods, kitchen and bathroom products.

The waters have receded but the work continues. Remember the city of Ipswich – 2500 houses fully inundated, over 7000 houses affected in some way and 600 business houses flooded. Our church was not the only church that helped and continues to do so. During this time the church through it’s people shone brightly.

And it all started with one phone call – an opportunity responded to and a need meet. All of us who were there will never be same again!