Three LCMS congregations hit by flooding in Iowa

By Sarah Reinsel

On June 22, heavy rains caused catastrophic flooding in northwest Iowa. What residents described as a “wall of water” hit several towns near the Little Sioux River. The water completely covered the landscape.

The ground was already soaked by the heavy rains in spring and early summer, so that entire fields were easily flooded. The sewage systems were also overloaded, so that basements of houses, shops and churches filled with sewage.

Three Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) congregations were severely affected by the flood: Christ the King Lutheran Church in Spencer, Iowa; First English Lutheran Church in Spencer, Iowa; and Trinity Lutheran Church in Hawarden, Iowa. Both Christ the King and Trinity suffered significant damage to their church buildings, and the flooding damaged the homes of dozens of families in these congregations.

“The flood has reached places we never thought it would reach, even places that were not in the flood plain,” said First English pastor Reverend Paul Kaldahl.

The baby Jesus has recovered

At Trinity in Hawarden, flooding has destroyed the entire basement of the church, including several Sunday school classrooms, the fellowship hall and the church kitchen. The lift, heating and ventilation system and boiler all need to be replaced.

In the Trinity rectory, where Reverend Joshua Lowe lives with his family, the basement filled with two meters of water.

“We suffered along with our neighborhood,” Lowe said. “Most of the neighborhood around Trinity was also under water. Many families unfortunately lost their homes and their neighborhoods. Things are going to look very different here in the near future.”

The Lowes lost valuable family heirlooms as well as children’s books, toys and home-schooling materials.

“God is generous to us every day through his people,” Lowe said. “We have received words of encouragement, support, prayers and gifts of money from all over the United States. … A friend from seminary and his wife put together an Amazon list for our children to buy them books and toys.”

Thanks to the work of a Lutheran Early Response Team (LERT) and other volunteers, both the basement of the church and that of the rectory were cleared out and gutted.

Among the items recovered from the church’s basement was the church’s nativity scene.

The baby Jesus figure was lost once before when someone “hijacked it, defaced it” and wrote “all kinds of nasty things” on it, Lowe said. It was recovered and restored and has now been recovered again after being temporarily lost in the flood. Parishioners are thrilled.

“I keep him in my garage now … to keep him safe and secure because we’ve lost him twice now and he’s come back,” Lowe said.

Lowe said the figure has become “a kind of living symbol for us of how Jesus took on our sins, our sicknesses and our sorrows – and now (we are reminded how) he also took on our filth because we had to rescue (the figure) from the sewage. It is an amazing proclamation of the gospel that the Good News of great joy is for all people. That is the message we want to proclaim to the church.”

“The Lord is merciful”

On the morning of the flood, the Rev. Michael McGinley and his wife were the first to notice that the basement floor was wet. About an hour later, water began pouring in from the basement drain.

McGinley said he heard a story about another parishioner and his son who were watching cartoons on Saturday morning and the next thing they knew they were knee-deep in water.

Many members of First English and Christ the King had to be rescued by boat later that day.

McGinley later discovered that the doors of Christ the King Church had been accidentally left unlocked on Saturday, so that by the grace of God, about 20 people from the congregation were able to seek shelter in Christ the King Church on the first night of the flood.

The floods filled the basement of Christ the King Church, the water was up to 2.5 to 3 meters high. And even after the flood receded, the groundwater level remained so high that the water continued to seep into the basement despite the daily pumping out work.

First English, the other LCMS church in Spencer, was spared from the flood. On Saturday night, with many people still stranded, McGinley and Kaldahl did what they could to spread the word that people could come and stay at First English. About 10 people came.

In total, the homes of over 70 families at Christ the King and First English Schools were severely damaged. Two of these families’ homes were total losses. McGinley and Kaldahl’s homes were also damaged. Many families at Iowa Great Lakes Lutheran School, which is located on the same property as First English School, were also affected.

On the Monday after the flood, McGinley and the church secretaries of Christ the King and First English began calling everyone on the churches’ service lists and compiling a spreadsheet of those who needed help.

“We worked hard at the beginning to make sure that no one (from either community) was in immediate need, that everyone had a roof over their heads, everyone had something to eat and everyone had clothing,” McGinley said.

Currently, the two congregations worship together at First English Church, with McGinley and Kaldahl alternating preaching.

“You end up recovering, just on a whole different level because you’ve lost equity, property and material value. (Everything) went down the drain,” Kaldahl said. “So all of our members are grieving losses to varying degrees. Some of them … had their whole house demolished, others lost all their possessions, and others lost their basement. Everyone is grieving and everyone is suffering from their loss.”

“But we see the body of Christ through acts of mercy and His coming at just the right time. … Everyone I visited was thankful that the Lord is merciful. They recognize that this is only temporary on earth and creation is groaning under the weight of the curse.”

LERT reaction underway

A few days after the flood, Julie Mann, District Disaster Relief Coordinator for the LCMS Iowa District West (IDW), along with Reverend Michael Meyer, Executive Director for Congregations and Districts for the LCMS Office of National Mission, traveled to Hawarden and Spencer to assess the damage and begin planning relief efforts.

This is the third major natural disaster to hit the county in the last three months. Tornadoes struck Minden, Iowa, in April and Greenfield, Iowa, in May.

“A major difficulty with this disaster is that most building and church insurance policies do not cover flood damage,” said Rev. Dr. Steve Turner, president of the IDW.

There is a high demand for manual labor, as well as contractors and technicians. Many families will have to wait months to get their homes repaired and face high costs to replace key appliances such as water heaters and heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

Volunteers are still needed for the LERT outreach, which began July 15. Volunteers will clean out and gut basements, perform pressure washing, disinfection and drywall work. Meyer noted that “the response to this flooding will be extensive; there will be many opportunities for volunteers to come and help. Together, we can remind the members of these three churches and their congregations that God has not abandoned them – by jumping into the chaos and helping them with our time and talents.”

Camp Okoboji, a Lutheran summer camp near Spencer, will host a site for outside volunteers and provide meals, shower and laundry facilities, and cabins to sleep in. St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Ireton, Iowa, will host another site focused on supporting community members in and around Hawarden.

“At times like these, we remember the rainbow and the promises of God’s divine protection,” Turner said. “But we have so much more than just a sign in the sky. The promise of Christ’s presence is found in the preaching of the gospel and in its sacraments. Rainbows come and disappear quickly, but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

Volunteer to serve on a Lutheran Early Response Team in Spencer.

Volunteer to serve on a Lutheran Early Response Team in Hawarden.

Individuals, communities and groups in the Iowa District West or Nebraska District who would like to donate to IDW relief efforts are asked to contact their district office.

Those outside the district who would like to support LCMS Disaster Response relief and recovery efforts can do the following:

• Checks should be made payable to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod with “Disaster Relief” in the memo line and mailed to: The LCMS, PO Box 66861, St. Louis, MO 63166-6861.
• Visit lcms.org/givenow/disaster, or send an SMS with the keyword LCMSDISASTERS to 41-444 on your SMS-enabled phone or tablet.

Posted July 16, 2024

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