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The Red River, normally a meandering prairie river that originates in the northern states and flows north through Winnipeg into Lake Winnipeg, overflowed its banks as a result of spring runoff from winter snowfall that was up to three times the normal annual amount. The flat landscape allowed the river to expand to a lake up to 55 kilometres long and 20 kilometres wide, nicknamed the Red Sea. At its height, it covered fields, highways, and swallowed up entire towns. The evacuation of over 24,000 people from several southern Manitoba communities mobilized many church and Christian agencies to help out.
Concord College, along with other educational institutes, opened up their dorm facilities to evacuees who may need to stay up to a month before they are able to return to their homes. Concord special projects coordinator Diane Kroeker said that while evacuees are shaken and worried about their homes, they are "very, very grateful" for the care they are receiving.
Kroeker says the cooperation among Manitobans has been outstanding. When Concord needed an extra cot for one of the families, she phoned a local talk radio station. Concord was immediately flooded with calls offering cots and an elderly man offered his truck to move the cot.
When she mentioned that one of the child evacuees staying at Concord was having a birthday, a woman left a cake, with a note saying that while she didn't have a cot, she could bake a cake.
The cooperation spans churches and denominations.
The Salvation Army provided sheets and pillowcases for the beds vacated by Concord students who have left for the summer.
Gateway Christian Community Church offered babysitting and child care services for exhausted parents.
The Meeting Place in downtown Winnipeg mobilized about 120 volunteers to form sandbagging teams. They were assigned locations by a phone centre set up at the church which logged requests. Leaders coordinated sandbaggers, food for volunteers, movers to help people who were being evacuated, and monitored various sources for needs that the Salvation Army and the Red Cross had at their flood registration centres.
St. Boniface Evangelical Christian Church, instead of their weekly small group meetings, spent an evening helping with the sandbagging effort in threatened riverfront homes.
The Fort Garry MB Church started a three-week Sunday morning series May 4 called "Flood and Faith Focus". The first service followed the theme, "Confidence in the midst of crisis". The following weeks addressed topics such as grieving and processing pain through the grid of faith and community rebuilding.
"Our goal is to provide a place for evacuees, interested community persons, and our own congregation to gather and bring together crucial issues of faith and life", said a recent Fort Garry press release.
Hundreds of individual church members across the city have volunteered their time to help fellow church goers and neighbours save their homes.
Westwood Community Church was one of the drop-off sites for "Operation Knee-Deep", a local drive to collect non-perishable food, clothing and toys for evacuees. Westwood pastor Lorlie Barkman says he also strongly encouraged his congregants to participate in Mennonite Disaster Service's effort to coordinate the massive clean-up after the waters have receded. Having participated in a previous MDS effort to assist flood victims in Moose Jaw, Sask., Barkman said flood clean-up is hard, messy work. "It's not as exciting (as fighting the flood), but the work is very rewarding".
KH
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