Sisters in Service

HCRN volunteers are more than just our labor force behind Rebuilding Homes, they are the drivers of how HCRN Restores Lives. This month, Presbyterian Church of the Master out of Mission Viejo brought two teams to serve in Paradise, California. On the first team, three sisters decided to come together from across the country to serve Camp Fire survivors. HCRN sat down to talk with them about their experience over their week.

Jill Cremer, Terry Blair, and Debbie Leach live in California, Georgia and Colorado, respectively. Jill has been on four service trips with Presbyterian Church of the Master. She had been asking her sister, Terry, to join one of these trips for years. Terry had never done a week-long trip before, but has been active on shorter work trips doing hurricane relief in Mississippi and Louisiana. Debbie has been on two trips now, saying, “[It’s] a way for me to come out here for a week, to serve God and to serve others. It’s very special!”

The three sisters spent much of their week working on Ron Carmody’s home. You can see a little about his story here. Jill said, “Ron is just the sweetest man. We had seen poppies in the area and I asked Ron if I could paint poppies on his back door.” Ron said, “No, I want you to paint them on the front door.”

Debbie compared Middletown, her previous trip, to Paradise. Where Middletown’s landscape was burned and black, even years later, Paradise seems to be filled with green growth. There’s so much construction going on all around town, and yet there are still so many burnt out foundations almost everywhere you go.

Terry’s experience with tornados has influenced her perspective. She was lucky to have her home survive a tornado, but the whole landscape of her town was changed. “The tornado took down every tree,” Terry said. She compared it to how Paradise residents must feel seeing the enormous stumps. “It took me a long time to look and appreciate where I lived and what it had become,” she said.

When volunteers come to serve with HCRN, a big part of our orientation is thanking them. They are giving a week of their life to donate their time, talents and energy to seeing disaster survivors come home. That’s a huge ask. But HCRN also likes to remind them that they need to leave their expectations for their trip at the door. Volunteers are encouraged to create bonds with our homeowners, to build relationships that are the foundation of emotional and spiritual recovery. These relationships work both ways, however, and a volunteer intent on only rebuilding will miss out on their own growth as an individual.

If you would like to be a part of Rebuilding Homes and Restoring Lives visit our volunteer page, or if you can’t give your time, consider making a donation today.