By TIM ALEXANDER Illinois Correspondent PEORIA, Ill. — Hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico; wildfires in Kansas and California – 2017 has been a devastating weather year for thousands of farmers and ranchers touched by an historic rash of hurricanes and other natural disasters, with billions of dollars in lost crops, livestock and property. As natural disasters unfold on cable news channels at a regular rate (including current California wildfires), farmers have been coming to the aid of victims in the form of labor, materials and machinery to help restore, to the best of their ability, what Mother Nature tears asunder. In central Illinois, members of the Fellowship of Christian Farmers International (FCFI) set up a booth at the Greater Peoria Farm Show on Nov. 29 to spread the word about how farmers and others can help their nonprofit organization take aid – along with the Word of God – to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico and Texas. “How do you help someone on an island?” asked Dennis Schlagel, FCFI executive director, about getting relief aid to people in Puerto Rico. “You can’t drive there and you couldn’t fly there. But we found a way to help a lot of people there.” FCFI has long come to the aid of natural disaster victims, from building fences on washed-out ranches “until the cows came home” in Louisiana following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, to general clean-up and repair work following an F4 velocity tornado that wiped out more than 1,000 structures in 2013 in Washington, Ill. When Puerto Rico was ravaged by Hurricane Maria, a past beneficiary of FCFI restoration efforts reached out for another helping hand from the Lexington, Ill.-based organization. Calvary Evangelistic Mission-owned Christian radio station WBMJ, based in San Juan, had lost a generator needed to operate the station, which broadcasts important post-hurricane relief messages to residents along with Christian programming. Its generator had originally been delivered to the radio station by FCFI volunteers following Hurricane Hugo in 1989, according to Schlagel. FCFI responded by delivering, with help from others, a pair of phase 50 KVA generators to the station soon after the latest disaster. “These 3-phase generators are commonly used for grain-drying by farmers. We got them in Leroy, just 20 minutes from Lexington. “The Lord made these generators available to us at a very reasonable price when we needed them,” said Schlagel, in between engaging with guests at the Peoria Farm Show, along with fellow Christian farmers Alan and Sharon Swanson and Nate Best. Central Illinois farmer and FCFI member Mark Freed, who located the generators, recruited neighbor Dave Weber to pick them up and drive them to Miami, Fla. From there, FCFI friend and manager of disaster relief for Samaritan’s Purse, Tim Haas, along with FCFI member Dave Stutzman, had lined up a shipping company to move the generators from Miami to San Juan. Once the generators departed Florida, all involved in the effort tensely awaited word of the shipment’s safe delivery – from point of origin to Puerto Rico and through the streets of San Juan to the radio station – until it was learned they had arrived at their destination. The generators were installed and the radio station was again operable. FCFI is preparing to organize a mission trip to San Juan and Calvary Evangelistic Mission in the winter of 2018, Schlagel added. “There are still very bad conditions in San Juan,” he explained. “Electricity has still not been restored (everywhere). “It’s just a terrible problem and it is going to take a long time to come back. Right now, many there are still just trying to survive.” FCFI members are still recruiting farmers, ranchers, skilled laborers and others willing to donate their time and labor, machinery, materials or capital to their Texas hurricane relief team. “I can’t send farmers to Puerto Rico, but we are sending farmers to Harvey, Texas. Between Houston and Corpus Christi, there is rice and cattle country, and there is a tremendous need to build fence there,” Schlagel noted. For more information on the FCFI Hurricane Harvey Disaster Team in Texas, call or text 309-530-7004 or visit www.fcfi.org |
