AGRM is standing by to help provide information and support for those potentially affected by Hurricane Matthew. 

After tearing through the Caribbean, leaving more than 1,000 dead in Haiti, Hurricane Matthew hammered the coast of the southeastern United States, leaving behind a trail of coastal destruction, wind damage, and freshwater flooding that claimed an additional 23 lives. Even though the downgraded storm has headed out into the Atlantic, many are still feeling its effects. So we will leave this page on our site to provide information for the public on finding help, if needed, as well as a place to get the latest information on AGRM member missions affected by the storm.

If you were personally affected by the Hurricane and need emergency shelter or aid, please use our map search to locate the nearest mission in your community. 

We have also provided a Hurricane Matthew Discussion Forum for our member missions to use to update us on the latest in their community (member log-in required). We will post some of their comments at the bottom of this page under "News from AGRM Member Missions."

News and Member Information

• Read updates from missions on the East Coast below (under "News from AGRM Missions").
• Join the conversation on Twitter by adding #AGRMmatthew to your tweets.
• Like us on Facebook to view updates and reports.
  
  

Support Your Local Mission

Assistance provided by gospel rescue missions is free of charge to those in need. Please review the following ways to support missions in areas affected by Hurricane Matthew.

Financial Contributions

AGRM missions are primarily privately funded and depend on financial contributions to provide aid and emergency shelter to those left homeless and hungry in the wake of disaster. Cash is the most efficient method of donating because it offers rescue missions the most flexibility in obtaining the most-needed resources. Use our map search to find the mission nearest you that you might want to donate to, click its website link, and in most cases the mission's online donation link will be on the mission website's home page.

Donations

Donate in-kind goods that are specifically requested or needed by the rescue mission. Confirm the needs by contacting the mission of your choice before starting to collect. Most missions will typically need the items below during a natural disaster:

• Non-perishable food items
• Blankets and sheets
• Coats for men, women, and children
• New clean socks and underwear

• Hygiene items

Volunteer

Immediately following a disaster, a community can become easily overwhelmed by the amount of generous people who want to help. Contacting and affiliating with an established rescue mission in the area will help to ensure that you are appropriately trained to respond in the most effective way.

Be patient. Recovery lasts a lot longer than the media attention. There will be volunteer needs for many months, often years, after the disaster—especially when the community enters the long-term recovery period.

Pray

AGRM's Intercessory Prayer Team is praying for all those who will be affected by the storm, and asking God for protection of life and property. You can join them by lifting your local mission before God in prayer.

News from AGRM Member Missions
(most recent information listed first)

October 11: From Penny Kievet, CEO of City Rescue Mission in Jacksonville, Florida:
Thank you to all our brothers and sisters in Christ for your prayers of safety and comfort. We are slowly assessing our damage and it appears that water damage to offices and electrical issues and water leaks in our warehouse/store/food storage are the major issues we are dealing with. We were able to assist 250 additional folks through emergency services from last Thursday until present. We are so blessed to be a blessing to those in need. It couldn't have happened without you and your ability to pray the storm away from the coastline. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Our hearts have been so filled by the generous wishes from you to hop in van/trucks and bring what ever we needed. I love you all and thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

October 10: From Bryan "Buddy" Morrow, executive director of CITA Mission in Melbourne, Florida:
We wanted to thank all of our sister missions for the prayers. It was a great blessing to have leadership like John Ashmen and Rex Baker call/email checking on our situation. We were blessed for the safety of our men and experienced what we call minimum damage. We lost a few doors, some shingles, two nice size trees, and a walk-in freezer condenser unit. This item along with about a a third of one of the thrift store roofs was the only costly damage. Thanks to everyone who prayed. 

October 10: More from Dean O. Webb, executive director, Faith Farm Ministries, Boynton Beach, Florida:
Thank you for praying. Hurricane Matthew’s eye skirted up the coastline and we avoided damage at all three campuses of Faith Farm. We only lost 10 calves, which were unable to weather the wind and rain. When John Ashmen called me to say everyone was praying for us, it was such an encouragement to all of us to know others were standing with us. Again, thank you for your prayers.

October 10: From LaCount Anderson, executive director of Union Mission of Roanoke Rapids in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.
Our mission is OK.  We are busy trying to provide food relief for residents of Conetoe, North Carolina.

October 10: From James (Jimbo) Stockton, CEO of Adventures in God’s Creation in Jacksonville, Florida: 
Thank you so much! Thank you Jesus for your protection. All is well here, we are now flying relief supplies to our Bahamian brothers and sisters that took a direct hit and in a real crisis situation. Please keep them in your prayers and if anyone has some extra hurricane supplies, please let me know. (Email Jimbo at adventuresingodscreation@gmail.com.)

October 8: From Rick Denny, executive director of Trinity Rescue Mission in Jacksonville, Florida:
I rode the storm out at the mission with our people.  In fact, things are just now starting to settle down. I am grateful to report that TRM’s guests, staff and property are all safe and sound and even our animals all fared well in Hurricane Matthew. We have lost power at our farm but we are hopeful to have that restored this weekend. We appreciate the prayers of the AGRM team and fellow members. I am so grateful for the 30 or so miles that God put between the coast and the storm.  This could have been a very different day if not for His protection.

October 8: From R. Patrick Hayle, president/CEO of Mercy Support Services in Jacksonville, Florida; and Selena Hayle, AGRM’s director of member engagement:
Thank you all for your prayers for us in Florida this week. God answered and we were miraculously spared a lot of grief! As we cleaned up today I looked at the 23 mature oak trees on our property, most of them hanging over or near our house, and not one fell! We did have two huge branches hit our roof over the garage and there was damage to the roof and the gutters, but this happened after the rain stopped so there was no water damage or flooding when we returned home from church last night. We lost power for about nine hours but our neighbors came together today and we have basically cleaned up all the debris. Things are more or less back to normal. It could have been so much worse were it not for the faithfulness of our loving Father who responded to our cries, proving once again that "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16).  

October 8: From Duane Sipper, executive director of The Path of Citrus County in Beverly Hills, Florida:
Just got a text from Stacia in Brevard, minor damage and debris only. She is very grateful with very limited damage. Cocoa was in one of the worst parts of the storm.

October 7: From Dean O. Webb, executive director, Faith Farm Ministries, Boynton Beach, Florida:
Thank you for praying. We came out blessed compared to what we tried to prepare for. Other two campuses relatively fine with very minimal damage. Update below from Rick Aspden, director/pastor of our Okeechobee campus:  

1. All students are safe with no issues at the present time.
2. There seems to be NO damage to any building that I am aware of, all are water tight.
3. Dairy calf area has some minor damage to the shade covers we have for them, should be able to fix with limited cost. At present we lost 10 calves from the storm, with some others quite sick. The rain and wind conditions are very hard on these young calves.
4. Initial assessment of the beef cattle herd is positive, I don't see any issues at present and will attempt to get on a horse this afternoon when things calm down a little more to get a better idea. As you can imagine the pastures are flooded and a vehicle would just get stuck.
5. Thrift store also has no damage, at least what I could see from the outside (forgot drill to take panel off to enter), 10' portion of fence blew down, but will be no big deal to fix.
6. All in all we were very blessed.

I believe this is why we were so blessed: Last night unannounced Micah went in to check on the guys to see how they were doing and this is what he found. All the men huddled up crying out to the Lord. Of course the staff of the Okeechobee Campus are very blessed by seeing this type of behavior out of our men and wanted to share the blessing, they are starting to get it.

October 6: From Marilyn Brummit of Miami Rescue Mission in Miami, Florida:
Miami and Broward were spared. Now we are praying for those who live north of West Palm. It did cause many of the chronic homeless to come off the streets for a couple of nights. We had an opportunity to share God's love with them.

October 6: From Rex Baker, CEO of Gateway Rescue Mission in Jackson, Mississippi; president of AGRM’s Deep South District: 
I communicated by email with several of the Florida mission directors last night.  Freddy Clayton, Orlando mission director, was having hip surgery this morning so he needs double prayers; for healing and for safety.  I’m a bit concerned about Buddy Morrow’s CITA Mission in Melbourne.  They are two miles inland, but are near a river.  Storm surges can travel up river for miles and do massive damage inland.  Penny Kievet is battening down the hatches in Jacksonville.  DuWayne Sipper expects to be okay because The Path of Citrus County is on the eastern side of the state.

Having been through Katrina at our mission, I can only pray that God will spare them catastrophic damage and will protect their lives.  We had two homeless shelters in Biloxi, Mississippi that tried to ride out Katrina.  Both were destroyed and no one survived.  (they were not AGRM members)  Our sister missions in Florida don’t have the option to evacuate.  They stay behind to meet the massive needs

October 6: From AGRM President John Ashmen:
I've checked in with Ron and Marilyn Brummitt in Miami/Hollywood/Broward County. They are doing well thus far, taking all of the necessary preparations. Just to their north, I talked to Dean Webb at Faith Farm. They have moved their guests and clients out of smaller buildings, into their large Thrift Store, praying that the winds don't do too much damage—particularly because of Florida's insurance limits. I also spoke with Buddy Morrow  at C.I.T.A. Rescue Mission in Melbourne. They are closing things up and even helping some of their neighbors prepare for the storm. These are the three member mission organizations (all have multiple facilities) that will be the first in Florida to absolve Matthew. 

October 6: From Penny Kievet, CEO of City Rescue Mission in Jacksonville, Florida:
Thank you for the prayers everyone...please continue to pray for the safety of folks who are on the streets.  City Rescue Mission is providing an additional 100 beds for the next three days and started receiving new guests at 8:00 a.m. this morning.  Jacksonville is scheduled to be one of the hardest hit cities and we have four AGRM member missions here.  The worst of the storm right now is to be Friday 6 pm through Saturday.  Please pray for our missions, that we can help as many people as possible and that we have adequate supplies for all in need...thank you and God bless you. 

October 4: From Yvonne Grant, CEO of Open Arms Drop In Centre in Kingston, Jamaica: 
So much to praise the Lord for. We have been spared one more time. We are only expecting more rain. We are praying for the people of Haiti and preparing to help them as they are being hit. It is too early to say what damage is being done.