Neon Kentucky Presbyterian Church Journey

Mike Cloy 0:00

But we all know that we are responsible for the unity , peace and purity of the church as a member of the body of Christ . All of us are responsible for that , but in particular members are responsible for that , all of which of us are members of the body , much less officers , but as members we commune with each other . We deny ourselves , we think the best of those that are in worship with us . The whole point of healing in Neon was to get people back to worship .

David Nakhla 0:28

This is David Nakhla , administrator for the Committee on Diaconal Ministries . We're thankful for the opportunity to have you listen in on this session from the 5th OPC Presbyterian Diaconal Summit , co-hosted by the OPC's Committee on Diaconal Ministries as well as Committee on Ministerial Care , held in Chicago just this past November . Although the content is primarily focused toward those serving on Presbyterian Diaconal Committees , I trust you'll find that many aspects of the talk will benefit local deacons with food for thought , with inspiration that comes from thinking outside the box . We urge you to value yourself for the resources you'll hear about in this episode . As always , we welcome your ideas and feedback and we hope that your work is blessed by the content that you hear . Now let's get into this next episode .

Seth Long 1:14

So what I thought I would do in the context of the presentation Mike will give we'll tag team a bit during that presentation , but I was going to lay the foundation , the groundwork , to give a context for what we're talking about today , because I don't know if everybody knows about Neon Kentucky . How many people have been there ? Raise your hand , yeah , that's pretty impressive really . You haven't been to Neon unless you're going there . You don't pass through the region to go anywhere unless you're going to Neon Kentucky . I've labored in Neon since 1991 . I went there for a summer with my wife to work on housing and we never left . We're still there .

Seth Long 2:08

When I went to Neon , I went as a Mennonite , believe it or not , and in an area where there is no Reformed theology , where there is a desert when it comes to Reformed theology . The Lord brought me and my wife to Himself wrestling and struggling through different issues that we were facing and looking at the Word . Praise the Lord for His goodness and His kindness . He can do anything he wants to do , even with crooked sticks . Like us , he can draw the straight line .

Seth Long 2:42

Neon Kentucky is located in the mountains of central Appalachia . It is a hotbed or a leftover remnants of the second great awakening . There's a lot that happened back in that area and we see the effects of it today in the churches . There are no reformed churches in our area . A lot of Pentecostal churches , a lot of Baptist churches , some of the mainline churches . We even have snake handling churches . There's all kinds of . There's a lot of churches there but we're the only reformed presence really in the region . The region has been impacted a lot by the coal mining industry which has been happening there for over 100 years . The resources from the area have been extracted . Much of the wealth has been taken out and not left behind for the people who live there . That's another story in of itself . But it's left an area of persistent poverty where there is much entitlement , there are many needs . There's one statistic that we often think about is that one in four of our neighbors lives on less than $10,000 a year 25% of the people . What would you do if you lived on $10,000 or less a year ?

Seth Long 4:11

The history of the mission work in Neon . We held our first service on April Fool's Day , 2000 . It was a Sunday . That was our first service in 2000 . Neon , kentucky is a special work , a special Neon work .

Seth Long 4:26

You know a lot of times , mission works are usually five years , seven years and you want to particularize the denomination . And the Presbytery has realized that this is a generational work , that it will take years to transform people , families , lives and bring them around . And from day one we prayed that the Lord would raise up particularly young men to be leaders in their homes and to be leaders in the church . Officers in the church . Raise up solid young men in the church . Raise up solid young men . Praise the Lord that just a few weeks ago the first young man was installed as an evangelist in Hayes County Presbyterian Church in Texas . What a joy that was for the folks at Neon to see and answer that prayer . 23 years later . It takes time , but this young man was converted under the ministry of the church , brought to himself and grabbed a hold of the Reformed faith and is now an evangelist in the OPC . God can do great things .

Seth Long 5:39

Today we have about 30 . On any given Sunday we can have 30 gathered in worship . On a good Sunday 36 , but usually morning worship we have 30 . We have morning and evening worship . When we started the church back in 2000 , we had two families and a single lady , and the two families were foreigners . We weren't from there . I'm from Pennsylvania , the other family was from Michigan and it had very much the feel of a mission work , where people go into an area that aren't from the area trying to plant a local church , but today , the 30 people that have gathered , we're the only ones there that aren't from the area . We've been there for 34 years now . We're kind of from the area , but no , we'll never be there because I wasn't born there and my papa is not from the area . That's really important to the people in the mountains .

Seth Long 6:39

On July 28 , 2022 is a morning I'll never , ever , ever forget in my life . It was an incredible day . My son woke me up in the morning , going to work 6 o'clock , and he said Dad , I don't think I should go to work today . I said why not ? He said the culvert's overflowing . I said no . He said come look . I said you serious ? He said yeah , this culvert . We never saw it overflow . It would take a lot of water .

Seth Long 7:17

And I went outside and all I could hear was the roar of water rushing down the mountains . And my first thought was to protect my family and our property . So we got the headlamps out , I'm in my underwear , raincoat and I'm on the tractor making ditches and things to try to protect our house . That's how the morning started that day and as it became light I realized this was a pretty significant flood . But I didn't know how significant it was . We would come to learn that 16 counties would be declared a disaster area . We would come to learn that this record flood beat the previous record flood set in 1957 . The river crested at 14.6 feet in 1957 . This time the river crested at over 24 feet and it went everywhere . 55 people would die in this flood and I'm amazed more people did not die in the manufactured housing , the trailers that were by the creeks that got it washed away . The stories that we have heard about how people survived is just really pretty incredible .

Seth Long 8:40

We're in the middle of a catastrophic situation . I used to kind of think Mike Cloy was crazy . I used to think that because he talked about you know what we needed to do to be prepared for disaster . You know you need satellite phones , you need strip mats , the bridges are going to be out , the comms are going to be down . The electric is going to be down . Guess what ? All that happened , every bit of it . And how are the people in our churches ? We don't know . We can't get a hold of them . In fact , we can't even get 200 yards down the road because the road isn't there or the water's over the road .

Seth Long 9:22

It took over 12 hours for us to get three miles down the road and out to the mouth of the holler where I got a call from David and Mike . Do you remember the call ? It was on that call these guys were checking in with me and they were telling me about the flood . And I said you got to be kidding , this is on national news . And David's like yeah , this is a big deal , this is a one percent storm , or one thousand year flood is what they're calling it . All that I knew at that time was right around me because we had no TV , we had no phone , we had no electricity . The water was out , all the pumps were down , the sewers were out , everything was gone . It was a pretty amazing event . That's when I knew it was going to be a big deal .

Seth Long 10:22

The next day I would learn that up in Neon , where the church is . I'm almost ready for you , mike . Up in Neon , the boom fork of the Kentucky River is usually a couple inches deep and you can literally jump across it . It became a river , hundreds of yards wide , at some places over 300 yards wide and over 12 feet deep at spots . A raging river . And it went right through our church six and a half feet of water in our sanctuary An incredible feeling , much , much bigger than what we could handle . We needed help , we were inundated , and this is where I'll turn it over to Mike .

Mike Cloy 11:03

This is probably what you said Thursday night .

Mike Cloy 11:07

So we call the DART . We have a DART , a disaster advanced response team . It's composed of about 15 men with a trailer , about $25,000 worth of equipment , and those men are trained by FEMA on several skill sets . Most of them are pretty hardy , they know what it is to get dirty . Most of them are pretty hardy , they know what it is to get dirty . And we did not know , because we normally call the church and say tell us about the damage . And we had no idea other than the pictures that Jay Bennett was sending of his truck floating down the river and the fact that the water was up real high . We know we had a flooding event . We might add trees on houses . We have the ability to tarp roofs , pump out basements , cut trees off , anything , just do about it , anything that's needed . But we needed a picture , a snapshot , before we deployed the DART . Didn't have it , so we deployed the DART .

Mike Cloy 11:59

The DART got there and they found themselves in the business of mucking . Got there and they found themselves in the business of mucking . The church had already started mucking out , pulling off the drywall and so forth , but we had , I think , six men show up with a trailer , a bobcat on a trailer , and they went to work . And it was remarkable already to see what , especially the youth of the church many of them last name Long who were in there getting it done . So in about two days we were able to do that . So on Monday , there , the s ready to redeploy back to where the trailers kept in the Atlanta area , at an OPC church down there I decided to show up and see the damage myself . On Monday I talked to the dart the day they leave . And then Seth's there . I still remember getting out of my car , my wife's with me . I see Jay , jay and I have been texting , iming on Facebook and we hugged each other . It hurt , he's a big boy , I mean I'm giving a man . Hug that bad boy , he's a big boy . But we both cried a little bit at what we were seeing . It hurt , it hurt people . And so Seth put me in his truck and showed me the community .

Mike Cloy 13:17

One of the things Seth wanted me to understand is Neon is not like any other place . They had already been a people who have suffered for many years and now they're twice suffering , and he wanted to show me that this is a special community . And one of the things Lacy Andrews , our regional home missionary , who sits on the provisional session for NEON , made it clear to all of us , to our presbytery and even our denomination , with his little saying of NEON doesn't need the OPC , the OPC needs Neon , because there are people who need Christ and they're hurting , they're in poverty , deep poverty , and they don't trust much of anything . In fact , one of the things that I learned from Seth was that the church was often viewed as a cult because of the gracious love of Jesus . It was not a works , righteousness based faith , it was a grace based faith and that was foreign to them . And so we had that particular struggle that when we send people there to make sure they understood not to come into the community and offend , offend the people who've been there for years to look down upon them and their poverty , we held a little devotional . It had to do with the resurrection story we read in the Gospels . There's Seth , myself and Jay , and I wanted to remind them that God will take care of the church , because death does not win . The death and destruction that we were looking at with the water damage would not win . That Christ has won and that he will use this , even this tragedy , for good . All right , so we prayed and we went to work . This is what I teach my DART members when they come on the team . I want them to understand why they do disaster response . The other thing is we do a little church civics lesson because one and this is something david has to thump me in the head every once in a while with , but he hates my triangle occasionally I get a little carried away with it .

Church Unity and Disaster Response Responsibilities

Mike Cloy 15:45

But we all know that we are responsible for the unity , peace and purity of the church . As a member of the body of christ , all of us are responsible for that , but in particular , members are responsible for that , all of which of us are members of the body , much less officers , but as members we commune with each other . We deny ourselves , we think the best of those that are in worship with us . The whole point of healing in Neon was to get people back to worship . That is how God heals his people is through the worship of him . That is how he gives them life is through the worship of him . And so we know that the shepherds are responsible . So in communion , in unity , we prevent division or or schism , but the shepherds are responsible for the peace and the purity of the church , but they protect the church from wolves who distract us from worship . You can think of the church of Colossi , where the mysticism is in amongst them and it's now in their church and it's distracting them . People are saying you need Christ and this right . Well , the shepherds protect the sheep from the wolves , which keeps them focused on worship .

Mike Cloy 17:09

We all know deacons are about mercy ministry . But the question is , why do they apply mercy ? Think of the Acts 6 story . We have widows who can't get food . We even have priests who can't get food . They're in a crisis . They cannot receive ministry of the word because they're wondering where their next food , a bit of food's coming from , or their safety or security . And so they're wondering where their next food bit of food's coming from , or their safety or security . And so they're in distress .

Mike Cloy 17:41

And because deacons apply mercy , they help the person in distress who has just seen their house flow down a river or water and they're sitting under a tree watching the water recede so they can come out of it . Come out of the tree . They get their minds off the picture of death and back on Christ in worship by helping them understand the peace of the gospel again . Okay , get their eyes on Christ , get their eyes on the God Almighty who they love . So , deacons , apply mercy because people are in distress . They are not at peace . We all have been there . We have something that's going on in our lives and we're trying to worship and we are distracted and we are not giving of our whole heart , soul , mind and body to God Almighty in worship , because we're thinking about whatever distress we might be in .

Seth Long 18:43

So so so the storm was on Thursday . We started at the church on Saturday mucking out . The dark team came in on Saturday . Sunday we were worshiping . We were worshiping Sunday , not in that building , no way . We went to a park that was pretty high on a mountain under a little shelter and it was about 16 people from the church gathered that morning in our work clothes because guess what we're doing after we worship our work clothes , because guess what we're doing after we worship . We were going to go back and continue the work of necessity and start mocking out the church again that Sunday afternoon after we worship .

Seth Long 19:26

But we worship that Sunday , and I think the PDC had a lot to do with that , sending support . There's a plan being put together . We don't have to worry about all this . We can focus on what the Lord has given us to do . So we worship together that Sunday , the next Sunday and for about the next nine Sundays we would worship in a Baptist church after their service that was about 30 minutes away . They offered it free of charge . Say come worship at our church . We know what happened in Eon , and that was a blessing too to have a place to go to .

Mike Cloy 20:04

So this slide is basically a picture of ministers of the gospel raising their hand at the beginning of worship and at the end of worship and giving the peace and the benediction . And we go out into the world and we long for the next Sunday where we are with God's people and receiving his blessings . Right , what happens during the week ? You have crisis , emergency , disasters , and it disrupts the peace of the Lord and the whole goal , Sunday to Sunday to Sunday until God brings us home to glory is to rest in him and have the peace that surpasses all understanding , which we will have when we meet him face to face . So that is the rhythm , the rhythm of our lives , and so disaster response is meant to sustain the rhythm of our lives , which is worship .

Mike Cloy 21:14

Now , deacons , how did we prepare ? How does the PDc prepare for disaster ? Simply put , we need to make sure we know our deacons in our churches and those who are fulfilling those responsibilities , and that they know their sheep . And what you see on this graph is that and this is something that I work with daily with homeless people is , if the homeless person or the person that's in distress is connected to their church , their community , the fellowship of believer , the communion of saints , then they usually can bounce back because they have somebody that will come to them and love them and help them . This is fellow members , but even more so with a deacon . But if they're isolated and they live on an island , they have a harder time , a more difficult time bouncing back . When regard to time management , are they prepared ? Do you know what happens when all the road signs blow down and you're trying to navigate a city that is being organized , but do you know in time how to be prepared ? And those that are reactive and isolated have a low ability to weather a storm . Those that are organized , have a plan , have a means to communicate , a means to come alongside each other to find gifts and graces amongst the body of believers , have a much easier it won't be easy much easier time and are able to bounce back quicker and help others .

Mike Cloy 22:48

And that's the goal of the PDC is to help prepare deacons and churches to know their sheep . Do we know where our sheep live ? Do we know literally , is there more than just one person that knows how to get to somebody's house when a tornado blows through and there's no way to navigate off a road because the road's full of debris and the road signs down and all those man-made features , landmarks are gone . And do you know the capability of that family and even their neighbors ? Do they have the ability ? Who's in the house ? Do you have developmentally delayed children ? Do you have elderly ? Do you ? You know , you need to know those things . This is something we try to teach our deacons from a PDC perspective with regard to disaster response . Know your sheep . You got to know their gifts and graces straight out of our confession . You need to know the outer man and the inner man , the outer man and the inner man . You can see what's listed there and , most importantly , deacons and the diaconal committees can assist with disaster response registry . It is absolutely huge . I can call Trish or David and tell them give me an update of everybody in my presbytery that is registered as a PDC . I'm going to look for them . I'm fixing to give them a task and a purpose . Okay , Because they registered , I know who you are , I know where your phone number is and I'm about to reach out to you . Okay , Big help . If you do nothing else , get them on the registry , Encourage them to serve and get them on the registry .

Mike Cloy 24:41

This was huge for us and the Presbytery of the Southeast we have . At the time we had probably 28 churches with our mission works , 25 organized no , yeah , 25 organized works and about 28, . 29 mission works . I mean four or five mission works to bring us up to 29, . Maybe 30 . And we had probably I'm going from memory we had 72 , 73% representation of volunteers from our own Presbytery . We probably had , of those 25 organized works , we probably had 18, . 19 of those churches had volunteers come from their churches to help a fellow church in the presbytery of the southeast we had over 170 volunteers total , many from presbyteries . Michigan , ontario was huge with that contractor that came . He was . You remember him ? What was his name ? Yeah , that guy was remarkable yeah , from ohio .

Seth Long 25:50

You know , a dynamic about having the presbytery come to was that they were close , relatively speaking , and they could come up for a day . They didn't have to come for a week or you know a lot of people . It's hard to get off a week , but a lot of people can get off a day or two . So having an active presbytery really enabled us to have a lot of volunteers coming in for a day or two at a time , which was a huge help , because sometimes you really just need volunteers for a day or two when you're doing something .

Mike Cloy 26:18

Yeah , yeah . So how do we do it ? This is probably the key slide , and this is a proven model that David taught us from his observations over the years , I think even through other denominations . It's the same thing we used at Wilmington and New Bern when they were hit by what was that ? Florence ? Florence , yeah , first thing we got to do Is speak with a session and a diaconate , if they have one , and find out what their priorities are . That's what we did with Seth and Jay when we went to see them and pray on them , and then we let them know that we're going to come alongside them as a disaster response .

Mike Cloy 26:57

Pdc and David is also , and Trish and everyone else at the denominational level are going to come alongside them , but they're the main effort . We're going to take our lead from them . We're going to listen to what they want done first and when they want it done , and then we're going to ask them to find us a hospitality coordinator , someone on the ground that can make sure those volunteers , when they get there , get housed and that there's a means to feed them . We'll talk about that uniqueness , in fact , I'll let seth do that in a minute and then we're going to find a volunteer coordinator . This person's huge . They're the ones that receive the hey , I want to go . And they have to make sure that they're ready to go , insured , right , they've signed the requisite forms , that they have a skills assessment , that they're on the registry . All that happens before they even get to go . And this person's got to be strong enough to say you can't go , you won't sign the form . Okay , literally , this person has got to be able to say no . And if they get in , you know someone gets argumentative . Then they just send them to me , I'll take care of it , all right .

Mike Cloy 28:14

And then we've got to have a site coordinator , somebody that's on the ground making sure they are listening to what the session wants done and the building of that sanctuary so we can worship as fast as possible , and what goes first and what goes second , what material needs to be there at the right time . And he's communicating to the volunteer coordinator saying I need this skill set at this week , find it . And she said I already got it , just tell me when they need to be there . And so it all is synchronized on the ground . And then these three entities meet . I think we met weekly , maybe even a little more often at the beginning , to make sure that we were supporting those that were on the ground and that they were talking to each other . Okay , and we just did this every day , every week , until it was done , and at the end , one year later , when did you all start worshiping in there , right ?

Seth Long 29:20

So one year , july was the flood and then that October we were back worshiping .

Seth Long 29:26

It wasn't finished but we were worshiping in the building . A few comments about the way this all worked out was pretty amazing to me . When you think about a site coordinator , this is all teamwork that's happening here has to be communication , has to be people on the same page . We had like five different phases of site coordinators . We didn't need one coordinator to be there for months and months . My son started out . We called him the chief muck raker and that's from the Pilgrim's Progress , if you remember . But his job for 30 days was to coordinate the muck raking . I mean just raking out the muck in our building and when we got the mud out of there and it was pressure washed , we started doing neighboring buildings in the town with volunteers as a witness to provide hope and because we had the skill and the ability to do so , because we are a connected church , it made that possible .

Community Restoration Efforts in Kentucky

Seth Long 30:28

Jim Flanagan , a man that came , wasn't necessarily a site coordinator , but here's a man within the contact list , within our presbytery , whose career was his work was done around the restorations of floods and fires A wealth of knowledge that helped us to know what to do . Know what to do .

Seth Long 30:59

Another mentioned Joe Fraught from Ohio , an amazing man that was brought at the right time . I had a scheduled vacation in September and I was pretty determined to get away , because it was a pretty demanding couple of months and I was afraid to go away but I needed to go away . Joe was the right man . This all happened in God's providence that he could come the week I was leaving and a lot of things could go wrong if you have the wrong person on site . He was the right man .

Seth Long 31:27

He was a contractor with able-bodied boys that came in and provided the leadership to a big lift , was figuring out what materials we needed to take it all the way to the trim stage . That was a heavy lift . I didn't have time for it . He came in , we met with him . He ciphered all that down , got the materials delivered from Ohio into the region . Our region was inundated . It was hard to get materials . He coordinated the materials to be brought down and they even gave us a discount and he provided the leadership to get that building . He did a great job .

Mike Cloy 32:05

Let me hold you there , because this is something . This is the tension that's in the room . We want to do what the session wants done . You got a stubborn Presbyterian Diacal Committee member who's saying we're moving , all right , don't blink , this is going to get done . He's going on vacation and he's thinking all of what we want to do while I'm gone is going to wait till I get back . All right . And I said I said I got this guy , joe , I've been talking to and he sounds pretty remarkable , and he said he'd come down . Would you mind talking to him ? And the two of them met and next thing , you know they're walking around the building like this . So we're holding hands . And he came back with a smile on his face , a touchdown , we're good .

Seth Long 32:47

So it's like so my career has been around working with volunteers . A lot of people coming in , a lot of work's going to get done in one week . Wrong man there . It's a disaster and it was beautiful how the Lord provided I pushed back , mike pushed people back , but it all worked out very well . Lord bless the other thing . I would say an HVAC contractor , presbytery , mid-atlantic or PSC .

Mike Cloy 33:15

That was us .

Seth Long 33:16

That was us came in this is what he does for a living and he replaced all the HVAC stuff in the building that had been flooded out . Huge help . Another circle that could be added to this diagram , I think , would be like the NAPARC help that we received . So David was able to let the PCA know , or they contacted him , brought it down to the PDC and they were an incredible help . They brought some of the coolest equipment for us to use a stand-up skid steer that we could get through doorways to get the mud out and the debris . With a big claw on you could grab a water heater and go out of the building with it . It's pretty cool .

Seth Long 33:58

Um , a whole pressure washing trailer rigged up with tanks and generators and intake hoses . I mean , it was , it was . It was a lot of money and they brought that and parked it on the street . Use it for whatever you want to do . And we pressure washed our buildings and probably three other buildings during the course of the time that was there Again in helping our neighbors that were all around in town , inundated , overwhelmed , without the resources that we had at our hand .

Mike Cloy 34:33

So Seth is continuing . You know October we're back kind of worshiping , we're still working it . It gets close to December and Seth's like we need to get in the community . So we started getting in the communities in the month of December but then we realized it's going to be too cold to be doing anything . So we kind of went into a tactical pause with the purpose of in March , when we started up again , the full effort had shifted from getting the worship space ready to worship in , because it was almost there , was getting there and we were going into the community . And that's when we got a new site coordinator , a deacon , another deacon . We had another deacon who was helping with the inside of the church , but then we had a deacon do ministry in the community . You need to tell them about this guy .

Seth Long 35:16

So Mike Kelly . First I should say that Jeff Davis raise your hand . Jeff , jeff made a couple forays down to Neon too and he was instrumental in the first Sheds of Hope . It's a PCA ministry where they provide in-disaster sheds for people , because when you have a disaster like this , one of the things that you have a hard time is the stuff that you salvage . What do you do with it ? And they have these 12 by 10 sheds that they made available 24 of them for us to take to our neighbors , people in the community that lost everything they had . And it was an opportunity for Mike Kelly picked up this work , a deacon from our presbytery . He was up for months and he would take a team of volunteers and go put up a shed one day , and when they're putting up a shed they were meeting with a family . It was a mercy ministry outreach idea that we could visit , establish relationships and then also you could go back Like the shed was built . You could go back and paint that shed later on . There was excuses . You have to go back and interact with people . So it was really kind of an outreach opportunity during the storm . Also say , mike Kelly was a deacon who spent a long time in Neon and came to love the place . The people loved him and Mike Kelly has been coming back at least a week or two every quarter to be a deacon for us at the church . It's what seven hours to get there , but he loves the people .

Seth Long 37:05

I got a call this September from the mayor of Neon . He said what's that guy's name from North Carolina that came in and did so much in this town ? I said you talking about Mike Kelly and Sylvia . He said what's that guy's name from North Carolina that came in and did so much in this town ? I said you talking about Mike Kelly and Sylvia . He said yes . He said we're going to honor them publicly on stage during our festival . And of all people you know , somebody that came to work through the church was recognized by the governance of the town because he did so much and interacted with the people in the town . It was beautiful , it was really well . Not everybody can do that in Neon , kentucky , but Mike is a gifted man .

Mike Cloy 37:41

Finally , and this reminds me of Chris's devotional when we started our conference we never lose sight . The disasters can help us , help people , understand redemption . Lacey Andrews will tell you that disasters are many judgment warnings that point to the need for redemption . And I got several years in combat and I can tell you , having been shot at a few times and mortared , some near death experiences . It makes you think about where you're going to be when you die . These events , when you hear the stories of these people who nearly passed away , and then those that were loved ones that did , it's an opportunity to speak of Christ because they're vulnerable . The lord , providentially , has brought suffering for a reason in many cases to point them to their need for him , because they will die in their trespasses and sins if they don't . That's all I got .

Seth Long 38:47

My beard looks better than yours anyhow um , I guess um , does anybody have any questions about the way this operation worked or anything about the situation that we're talking to ? Yes , sir .

David Nakhla 39:04

Chair Gostin , do you have to worry ?

Seth Long 39:09

about permits and all that kind of stuff .

Mike Cloy 39:12

Great question , that's a great security . I said do you have to worry about permits and all that kind of stuff ? Great question , that's a great question . We almost came to a standstill one time remember which time was that . It was about the building and , uh , and being able to use it again because of all the rules that may change on our damaged building and all that .

Seth Long 39:30

Oh , there was some floodplain issues that we had to work through with FEMA . We did not report this to FEMA . We did not receive any of the FEMA funds . We were kind of worried about some of the strings that come with those dollars and what they may or may not require . But in Neon Kentucky , there is no code jurisdiction . There is no building permitting processes I see Pete there , there's not . I could go out and start building a house on a piece of property without pulling the first permit or getting anybody to say you can or can't do that . We just start building there in that way . So in that way it's very it's an unusual place to be working .

Seth Long 40:16

I think our biggest concern was for safety , you know , the safety of volunteers . That's not all mud that's laying around there it could be anything in that mud and just protecting our volunteers , making sure we kept people safe and somebody didn't catch anything really bad . Yes , sir , it was part of the slide , but what about logistics ? You touched on it , but what was it like ? So he's asking about logistics . So the first floor of our church is where we worship , where we eat Sunday school rooms . The second floor are three apartments One the pastor lives in , the two other were vacant so we use volunteers to get them in the condition to house volunteers on site right there , and that was a huge in the way of logistics . It made things a lot easier , Logistics .

Seth Long 41:19

One of the big pieces of equipment that really helped us out was the commercial evaporators and fans that are in a trailer that are owned by the PSE , pdc , and they were brought to us . The trailer from Michigan , ontario , was brought to us with tools I believe that's the one that came to us and those types of logistics . But the hard logistics really a lot of work . The hard work in a lot of this is a volunteer coordinator scheduling the right amount of people , the right type of people when you need them . That's a logistical job . That's probably underappreciated , but she had a very difficult task . That's hard work .

Mike Cloy 42:02

Normally , usually generally , you do not want to burden the church with a bunch of volunteers that they didn't get to take care of . So we can lean on David and the . So we can lean on David and the PCA , where they have bunkhouses , shower trailers and a bunch of other things , if need be , and set them up . We had no place to do that , Remember a flood had just come and so space in general was hard to find . So it was a true blessing to have this place above . It did limit well , we won't get into the word limit , but it did limit the number of volunteers that could come and the mixture of male , female .

David Nakhla 42:35

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