Hey Friends & Family!
I have been wanting to write this blog for over a week now, but I have been so busy replacing lost items, loving on friends, recovering, and preparing to leave for Guatemala. I am currently on the to Guatemala, soaring above the blinding white clouds feeling incrediblyñ grateful. Immense gratitude is a feeling I’d call myself familiar with this past week because when I look at my squad and our terrifying story I see the hands of God holding us tenderly but unwavering.
I would love to give you all my account of the incident that both captures the gravity of the mudslide and where I saw God’s provision through it all.
The 23rd of September, a Monday, began our week of domestic ministry in the beautiful Black Mountain, North Carolina which lays just 30 minutes from Asheville. We were partnering with Excel College, a Christian University, where we volunteered caring for pre-grammar aged children for the school’s homeschool co-op and helped with various landscaping projects. Additionally we partnered with Black Mountain Home for Children and Families which is a group home for foster children where the children are cared for in a way that helps them grow spiritually and emotionally and hopes to find them there final home so that the children are not uprooted by being moved around by the system. There we helped do some garden maintenance and deep cleaned one of their buildings to prepare for some official visits that were to occur later that week. Black Mountain Home graciously hosted us in the camp cabins on the mountain they owned just up the road.
The night before the mudslide on Friday the 27th, we believed that there was going to be a tropical storm coming through the area as a result of Hurricane Helene and were aware we wouldn’t be able to do ministry that day because our next tasks were outside work. We had planned to sleep in a little and have some relaxation and team time. That morning we were awoken by a knock on our cabin door just before 8 am and we were asked to move to the dining deck lodge, a building a little bit up the hill, because it would be safer should there be any fallen trees or branches. My side of the cabin grabbed whatever we wanted for the day and the breakfast supplies and ran for the dining deck in the rain.
At this point none of us were under the impression that we were in any kind of danger especially my teammates and I who had experienced Hurricanes before. I even called my dad that morning to talk to him and told him that we had been moved but I had no idea that Helene was coming and what the impact would be on the area.
We noticed signs of flooding and our leadership acknowledged that we would potentially have to relocate to the gymnasium at the BMH, but were told by several of their contacts that the dining deck was the safest place we could be. It was the highest point of the camp area and the building was sturdier than the rest.
We all gathered together just before 9 am to pray for Asheville and other communities that were affected or would be affected by the path of the storm. After praying, I began meandering around the lodge with my phone in hand. I happened to be standing near the door when Mitch called out “Guys! We have to go! We have to move!” because he saw the roaring wave of mud, rocks, and fallen trees barreling for us.
Not thinking twice I grabbed the girl next to me and sprinted for the door struggling to push it open. I begin to run towards the left before realizing there was no left of the porch anymore. Turning to the right we run down the stairs and up the mountain to a parking pad. Thankfully the leaders had the foresight to move the vans because had the been where they were originally they would have been swept away.
One of the leaders shouted that we needed the keys for the van and I began to wade through mud up to my calves back onto the porch to retrieve the keys. A large part of my squad believed they were trapped on the porch until I came around the corner because the stairs were flooded and seemed unsafe. I showed them the way off of the porch and helped them cross the mud to where we would stand for the next 2 hours waiting to get off the mountain.
In the moments on that parking pad my friends were in various states. I began to approach those hyperventilating and tried to help them regain a normal breathing pattern by holding their face and having them breathe with me. I tried to help those panicking by holding them, stroking their hair, and singing songs of worship over them. I began to noticed that when I sang over them their breathing would slow. Several teammates joined in as we praised God even in the midst of our terror.
It is hard for me to put the event that happened on the mountain into much of an order because everything seemed to happen so quickly but at one point we climbed into the vans muddy and terrified. The van I was in wouldn’t start so we began trying to fill the only other van we had a key for. In those seconds of transition I felt a panic rising in me and began to recite Psalm 23, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.” Psalm 23 is scripture that the Lord lovingly tucked into my heart at a young age. When processing the events I became aware of the time I spent as a child learning the verses in my kindergarten classroom at the Christian school.
I remember looking around the packed van thinking there was no way all 36 of us would fit and no way could we drive down this mountain. The van was filled with the sounds of my squadmates crying and calling home to tell loved ones goodbye. At that point I felt a supernatural peace begin to wash over me and I called my dad on the phone. My speakers on my phone were drenched in water so I was unable to hear anything but I told my dad what happened and I told him I loved him and to tell my family and I began to take care of my teammates in the way I described earlier.
I was completely aware that only by the grace of God we survived. All 36 of us made it out of that building alive because minutes before we had gathered to pray. My heart was filled with my gratitude than fear.
Three men who were apart of BMH staff were helping find away to safety. One of them by God’s provision was a survival specialist who was able to find the safest place to cross the mud river. After two hours of standing in the wind and rain we began crossing the river in pairs. We held on to a rope that was tied on either side and took one step at a time as debree hit our ankles and poked our bare feet, but again by God’s grace none of us sustained severe injuries from being barefoot.
We walked muddy and dripping into the building we had just spent the day prior cleaning and were clothed with the clothes we had sorted and tagged in the BMH thrift store. Again God’s provision was evident when large ammounts of food were available because a Christian conference that was supposed to occur that weekend was canceled due to the storm.
We spent almost the rest of the day there until a caravan of trucks from a hotel in Asheville arrived to take us down the mountain. While the place we were was technically ok there were gas leaks just up the mountain and potential for more flooding. Only vehicles with 4-wheel drive could get to us because of the conditions of the road.
God’s fingerprints are all over this story. The team of AIM staff that came to help us drove hours without maps navigating road closures and dangerous highways littered with fallen trees and debree. When they arrived in North Carolina they began looking for a hotel in Asheville where we could be safe and easily accessible and couldn’t find a hotel open. It wasn’t until just before they were about to give up that someone saw a light glisten from a second floor window in the Holiday Inn East.
There the team met a manager who was willing to clear out a conference room so we could sleep on the floor. A group of strangers were willing to drive the dangerous roads and through prison gates to get us from BMH to the hotel and people staying there seeing our muddy bare toes gave us the shoes off of their feet.
The father of a teammate and his friend then drove all through the night from Tennessee in two vans to help move us from the hotel in North Carolina back to Gainesville, GA.
There are probably a hundred more small pieces to the story that show just how loving and caring God is and how intentionally he cared for our squad that I can’t put into words, but I can put this into words: God is good all the time; He is sovereign and the only way we are all still breathing is by His grace.
Please pray for the recovery of those affected by Hurricane relief and for believers to be activated to help rebuild lives and share the Gospel in these broken communities. Pray for the continued safety of my team as we begin serving in Guatemala this week and that we continue to process all that has happened to us. Thank God for the provison he gave our squad because He gave us breath in our lungs and He promoted hearts in our community to give over $30,000 in a 24 hour period.
Thank you so much for partnering with me on this journey and for all the sweet messages and prayers! I am so incredibly thankful for you all!
Grace & Peace,
Maggie Claire Richardson
