Canadian Disaster Relief Site Manager Mae Joudry explains the impact our presence has on community spirit, igniting and reconnecting churches in the area, and encouraging local volunteers.
As Mae Joudry puts it, when Samaritan’s Purse volunteers accept a community’s invitation to help after a human or natural disaster, “It looks as though we’re serving, but the most important thing is connecting the churches, making them unified, so they can serve their own communities.”
Mae, a site office manager with Samaritan’s Purse, works with her husband, Stephen, to oversee many of the organization’s Canadian disaster responses. This includes transporting one or more of our specially outfitted Disaster Response Unit tractor trailers to the disaster site, and coordinating volunteers who use Samaritan’s Purse equipment to be the hands and feet of Jesus to hurting people.
Mae and Stephen spent about two months in the northern Alberta city of Fort McMurray, overseeing our response to the devastating May 2016 wildfire that burned more than 2,400 buildings, many of them homes.
Volunteering is the basis of our response, in Fort McMurray and in many other Canadian communities (including southern Alberta, after the 2013 floods).
Interested in becoming a volunteer with the Samaritan’s Purse Disaster Relief team in the future? Click here for more information and to sign up.
Through your prayers and generosity, please help make sure Samaritan’s Purse is well-equipped to serve wherever we are invited.
