Continuing the Story: Iowa Flood Update
A couple of weeks ago, we shared an email highlighting two churches impacted by the Iowa floods. As a follow-up, we’d like to tell another story of God’s provision, this time from Centerpoint Church in Hawarden, Iowa, another community affected by the flooding. Pastor Cy McMahon shares their story below.
Share on how your church and community were affected by the 2024 flood.
Centerpoint Church has two campuses, one in Sioux Center, IA - the other is in Hawarden, IA along the Big Sioux River. On June 22, 2024, the Big Sioux River crested 4 feet higher than its previous all-time record high. We knew the river was going to flood, it seems to flood every few years. The magnitude of the flood is what took most of us by surprise. Nothing could have prepared us for the river to be 4’ higher than ever before. Over 250 buildings in Hawarden were impacted by floodwaters including our Hawarden campus. At 9:30 AM Saturday, June 22 I arrived on our property after a call from city officials that they were worried about our church flooding. When I arrived, there was no flood water on our property. Less than an hour later, our entire building was inundated with nearly 3’ of water. Our campus opened this permanent location in April of 2021 after a 7 month build out to turn our building into a church. We got to do it all over again just over 3 years later. We were displaced exactly 90 days. Our first service back in our building was Sept. 22, 2024. The people of Hawarden jumped in to help with the clean up all over town as soon as the water receded early Monday morning. Groups who had been working to sandbag before the flood were now working together to empty homes and businesses impacted by the flooding of everything destroyed by the water. Many homeowners lost everything with just a few minutes to leave their homes before the water rushed in. A big part of the response, not just in town but around the region was providing an overwhelming amount of clothes and material possessions. Our community is great at coming together when people are in need, and this was no different. Businesses were hit particularly hard as most of the help that was provided officially was for homeowners. The people came together to support those businesses to help them make it back to fully operate and be able to be successful again.
How have you seen God at work?
The battle in difficult circumstances is to recognize you aren’t alone in it. No one was severely injured and the water, while devastating, was off most property in town within the first 72 hours. That was a blessing. From a church perspective God made the comeback story as soon as possible. We got all the work completed within 90 days and it wasn’t possible for it to have gone any faster. Everything went as well as it could have and that has to be from God. He orchestrated everything. We watched person after person being generous with their time, talent, and treasure. That is a picture of who God created us to be. Another thing that stands out is the perseverance that was necessary and displayed by so many. So many things have taken longer than - and been more difficult - than any of us could have imagined. But the people of Hawarden are sticking with it. An additional God sighting is the way that He orchestrated building and investment from a housing perspective in our town even before the flood happened. Because the process had begun so much earlier, building began on new housing units less than a month after the flood. Having new building happening so quickly allowed hope to spread like wildfire. We could see what a comeback could look like.
What are some ways we can be praying for your church?
The financial impact of the flood on our church was significant, especially considering the money we had invested just 3 years prior. Please pray for finances to help cover the costs of recovery from the flood. Please pray that God would use Centerpoint Church as a tool to help people to continue to recover from the impact of the flood. That Centerpoint could be a beacon of hope and part of the team who invests back in our community and its people. We believe Hawarden will be better post flood than the position it was in pre-flood. We believe the tools and people are in place for this to become a reality. Pray God would go before us and make a way for this to become true.
Please continue to be in prayer for this Alliance church and the many other Alliance churches that were affected by the Iowa flood. We praise God for his continued faithfulness to this region of Iowa and the many people and churches who continue to support ongoing recovery efforts.