Elmbrook Church Group Heads To Oklahoma To Help Tornado Victims

When a tornado punched, swirled and landed on Oklahoma on Monday, Mary Ann Lee, of Waukesha, got a phone call to come to Oklahoma instead of Texas.

Lee, the disaster relief coordinator for Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, is part of a team of about 14 people that had already been packed and ready to head to Texas after a tornado had ripped through the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Now, they will be going to Moore, Oklahoma on Saturday instead. And most will stay until June 2 to help in the clean-up effort.

The group, comprised of members from Elmbrook Church, are partnering with Samaritan’s Purse. The church group has traveled with the Christian-based disaster and crisis relief organization over 80 times since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

 “This is part of our church’s DNA… to serve others,” she said. “We’re going to give them hope. This is God’s feet in action and we’re reaching out to people in need.”

The church got the call to go to Texas last Wednesday, but they had to delay their trip because of the storms coming through Oklahoma.

“We would have been in that storm if we would have left, but God was gracious and told us to wait,” Lee said. “So we transferred our focus to Oklahoma and we’ve been waiting to leave since Tuesday.”

Yesterday the area had more storms, but the power has been restored and the group plans to put tarps on the roofs of the homes that are still standing, help people find lost items, and help clean up the rubble.

Lee said they are expecting the worst since they’ve been told the tornado cleared a long and wide area through Moore and had been on the ground for 40 minutes.

In Joplin Missouri two years ago an F5 tornado leveled the community they were in.

“We were speechless,” Lee said. “If Joplin was a 10 on a scale of 10, we’re expecting Moore to be a 12 or a 13.”

The workers often find leaving the area difficult since the work they do isn’t always completed.

“You’ve done what you can and for some of the team members it’s hard, but you have to get in your own head that you are not there to clear all of the rubble in Oklahoma,” Lee said.