Since 1983, Samaritan's Purse has mobilized thousands of volunteers to work with our Disaster Relief Teams to provide emergency aid to disaster victims in the United States.

To volunteer with U.S. Disaster Relief, click here.

Melissa Greenwood carefully placed the yellow and orange marigolds into the soft soil in Megan Snider’s yard. Snider’s new home, rebuilt by Samaritan’s Purse, was scheduled to be dedicated the next day, and Greenwood was among the volunteers making the final touches by planting flowers and decorating her front porch.

About a year ago, Greenwood was dragging trash, rubble, and pieces of broken tree branches from yards where homes were destroyed after an EF-5 tornado hit in Joplin, Missouri, on May 22. Now she was part of a team helping to rebuild homes and restore hope to the tornado-ravaged community.



The twister was the deadliest in the United States in almost 60 years, killing 161 people and injuring more than 900. Six thousand houses were destroyed, leaving more than 9,000 people without a home.

It was the sixth storm Samaritan's Purse responded to last spring, when a series of deadly twisters swept across the country. We were helping tornado victims at two locations in Alabama when Joplin was hit.

Within hours of the storm, we moved one of our Disaster Relief units from Birmingham, Alabama, to Forest Park Baptist Church in Joplin, where we established our base of operations. Our volunteers began removing fallen trees and debris, making emergency repairs, and helping salvage valuable possessions.



Greenwood was one of 6,413 volunteers who helped 755 families during our six-week disaster response. She drove with a church group from Aztec, New Mexico. She planned to stay a week, and ended up working for five.

She was stunned by the scope of the devastation and the loss of life.

“I had never seen disaster and tragedy like that before,” Greenwood said. “We come from a place that pretty much has no natural disasters. It was difficult to see because I have nieces and nephews, and I really treasure them, and I can’t imagine losing them. God was showing me that this earth is not our home. “

After serving for over a month, she felt like Joplin had become a second home. That’s why she wanted to return when we found out that Samaritan's Purse was staying in Joplin to provide homes for storm victims who had lost everything and needed help to rebuild.

“I really do have a heart for Joplin,” Greenwood said. “I wanted the people to see Jesus’ hands and feet in practical ways. The rebuild was a neat opportunity to come back and provide more service to them.”

Samaritan's Purse plans to be in Joplin through next September, rebuilding or repairing up to 20 houses.

The Snider home is one of two homes started by others that we helped complete. Snider and her fiancé, Jeff Kristoffy, had hired a contractor to work. But with the work less than halfway finished, he took their money and left town.

Samaritan's Purse staff members heard about their difficult situation through Snider’s grandmother, Doris. She was crying in her car in the parking lot of Grace Baptist Church one afternoon when our case manager, Stephen Bergen, approached her.

“I was totally overwhelmed by the needs I was seeing in the community,” she said. “I knew it was a lot bigger than I could handle on my own, and I needed to let all of my sadness out and turn it over to God. Then God sent Stephen to us. He prayed with me and told me Samaritan’s Purse could help.”

Bergen has had many similar encounters with families in desperate need in Joplin. He always gives credit to God for leading him to the right people at the right time.

“We serve a God who wants to answer prayer, and He is creative in the way He answers our cry,” Bergen said.



Over the past nine months, Samaritan’s Purse has rebuilt one home from the ground up, completed building the two homes that were unfinished, and has repaired six homes. Another 12 homes are in various stages of construction and planning. The work is being done by volunteers from all over the country, under the supervision of staff members skilled in construction. So far, over 500 people have worked on the project.

Robert Gallagher is one of the storm victims who will be receiving a new house. He said he was blown away that people from across the nation would come to a town they don’t know to help people they have never met.



At the end of every workweek, his 90-year-old mother, Loweta, shows her thanks by baking pineapple and walnut cookies in her little FEMA trailer and giving them to the volunteers. Every night, the Gallaghers pray for the volunteers, and before they return home, they tell them they are like family and are welcome in their home if they ever come back to Joplin.

“Samaritan’s Purse has been with us every step of the way,” Gallagher said. “It’s a miracle; it’s a godsend to us. We would do anything for Samaritan’s Purse.”

Even though the volunteers have lifted their spirits, the Gallaghers are still trying to recover from the trauma of the tornado.

“A year later I’m still in numb mode,” Gallagher said. “I still have nightmares from what happened that day. I’ve been burying myself in my work as a distraction.

“When it first happened I thought, ‘Why would God do this?’ But after the volunteers came and Samaritan’s Purse started the rebuild, I think we will be a better town for it in the end.”



Diana Hughey asked God the same question when her husband died in a tragic accident six years ago. The tornado taking her home was another devastating blow to her and her three adopted children, Brian, 11, Justin, 10, and Megan, 9.

She began praying that God would show her how He could be “a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5, Isaiah 54:5).

Hughey’s prayer was answered when a Samaritan’s Purse volunteer who was working on her new home told her, “Isn’t it great that God as your husband gave you a new home?”

“When she said that, I was like ‘ah God, now I understand,’” she said. “I realized through God providing me a home that I mattered to God, and to somebody.”

Samaritan’s Purse presents a Bible and a journal with messages from all the volunteers who worked on the house to the homeowner at the dedication of every house. We remind them that just as donors have covered all of the costs to build it, Jesus has covered all of their sins with His blood. It is ‘paid in full.’

Even though most of the rubble and debris have been cleaned up, and people are starting to rebuild their lives a year after the storm, families still are searching for comfort and hope in the midst of their pain. Our staff and volunteers continue to point them to the cross to find answers.

“There are still a lot of people who don’t have a daily routine down,” said Dan Helmich, the Samaritan's Purse program manager. “They lost everything—their jobs, homes, everything that meant something to them. Because of the devastation there will still be a lot of spiritual, physical, and emotional needs for years to come.

“There is hope here, there is progress. And there is a lot of kingdom work to do.”