The Messenger had a few minutes to sit down and talk with Peter Moen last week. Peter and his family lived less than 90 miles from Asheville, NC until 2013.
Here is what we talked about:
“My name is Peter Moen and I am the pastor at Concord Church of Christ. My family includes my wife, Bethany, and three daughters: Kiley, Hannah, and Emma. We live in the parsonage next to the church. My daughters attend Kasson-Mantorville.
I have been the pastor at Concord for almost ten years. I am also the Ambulance Director and an EMT with the West Concord Fire Department. I am also a chaplain with the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office.
My two older daughters Kiley (15) and Hannah (12), were born in Elizabethton, TN. We were living in Johnson City, TN as I was attending Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan University. Elizabethton was a local hospital where a generous OB/GYN doctor delivered seminary students’ babies for a minimal fee. It was a ministry of his to help serve those who were training to go into ministry.
Once I finished seminary with my Master of Divinity degree, we moved back to Minnesota to find ministry in the local church. I started at Concord Church of Christ in April of 2015.
Since that time, I have visited the region 10 times, and my family has made the trip three times. We made some great friends while down there and it is always good to visit and catch up with them.
Johnson City, along with Kingsport, TN and Bristol, TN, are major population centers and are called the Tri-Cities. Elizabethton is a decent-sized city of around 15,000 and we spent a lot of time shopping, enjoying the restaurants & coffee places, and learning about the history of Revolutionary War and the part this area and its citizens played in it.
The area we lived is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountain Range and only 30 minutes from an entry point to the Appalachian Trail. Due to the topography of the mountains, roads wound around the mountains and in lots of valleys, often following the rivers.
In general, the climate in East Tennessee is temperate and our winters were mild compared to the Upper Midwest. I remember only once experiencing the latent effects of a hurricane, which by that time was a heavy, constant rain that did not affect the area adversely.
We would receive sporadic snowfalls normally with little accumulation. However, even the threat of snow would cause most schools to close and drivers to be on edge. With the occasional heavy snow events, much of the region was crippled for a couple of days as they do not have near the resources like we do for removing snow.
In mid-September I flew into Charlotte, NC and drove a rental car through the mountains to Elizabethton for a series of meetings that I was a part of. Our meeting place was First Christian Church in Elizabethton.
When Hurricane Helene made its way through the region, I was in shock of what it was doing to the area. To have had firsthand knowledge of the area for four years and even just a couple of weeks prior to the storm and then see the destruction was devastating.
Elizabethton was hit hard with flooding, downed trees, and electrical outages, but they were relatively safe from the long-lasting effects of what happened just east of them in the mountains.
Many of our friends were directly affected by the hurricane. They have mostly recovered with electricity being restored and tree removal efforts being performed.
Elizabethton has become something of a gateway into the mountains where supplies and rescue efforts could assemble. With so many roads being washed away, mudslides that were wreaking havoc on towns and homes, and the loss of homes and lives, it is hard to put into words the devastation in the region.
The First Christian Church where our meetings were held became a central hub for dispersing supplies for a mission organization called International Disaster Emergency Service (IDES).
With the recent news of colder temperatures in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina, recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene are being made more difficult. Many are seeking shelter from the cold.
The biggest concern is road access. It will take months if not a year or two for some of the roads—including interstates–to be repaired. Closely related is the massive rebuilding effort that will need to take place for communities and individual living spaces. The amount of water damage along with mud and silt build up in homes and in neighborhoods will take a long time to clean up and will cost a lot of money. And many of these areas are inhabited with lower-income folk who will struggle to get the money to rebuild.
Being so far away from the disaster often makes it difficult for us to fully comprehend how lives have been altered forever due to this historic storm. We can see the videos and the pictures and hear the stories, but to be on the ground is an entirely different perspective. What we must realize is how long it will take for them to recover; to rebuild roads & homes, to regain a sense of normalcy in their lives where they do not have to think about just getting the next thing accomplished in order to live in a home, to not have to worry about food or money.
Thankfully, there are many good relief organizations and churches who are on the front lines of distributing food and water, but also feeding workers and being a safe haven for those in need of a shower or a place to sleep.
We are praying for them, and we want to help however we can.”
You can help Hurricane victims in North Carolina and Tennessee, at www.samaritanspurse.org
