In the summer of 2005, the OPC had a heart for helping people after natural disasters, but not a mechanism for organizing relief on a wider scale. What they did have was a man who could start figuring it out.

David Haney served the OPC in many capacities during his decades of service to the denomination. He unexpectedly went to be with the Lord in 2019. But in August of 2005, he was driving south toward the wreckage of one of the most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history.

Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and set off one of the most massive relief efforts in a century. There were no OP churches in the worst zones of Katrina’s wreckage, but a groundswell of OPC members were asking for ways to help those in need. Haney went to check it out. That trip laid the foundation for the next twenty years.

The wheels began turning for a more organized structure, and a few years later another David—David Nakhla—began serving as head of disaster response for the OPC.

Nakhla has seen the denomination learn and grow and develop in encouraging ways since Haney’s first trip to the Gulf Coast in 2005—all the way up through Hurricane Helene’s torrent through the Southeast last year.

It’s been a journey of learning how to plan, how to adapt, and eventually, how to train presbyteries to lead local efforts in the places they know best. It’s also been a story of God putting just the right people in just the right place at just the right time—all for the good of his church and the glory of his name.

The Unexpected Call

When Nakhla began his OPC role in disaster relief (and also short-term missions) in 2010, things were pretty quiet on the disaster front. Haney’s earlier work had convinced denominational leaders of the need to be better prepared for major catastrophes that required an immediate, full-time effort to coordinate, but Nakhla wasn’t sure exactly what that might look like as he started the job.

A few months later, he found out—but the call came from over 6,000 miles away. On March 11, 2011, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northern Japan, triggering a massive tsunami and colossal damage and loss of life. This time OPC workers were in the affected regions. So, Nakhla got to work.

The challenges were huge: How do you coordinate a major disaster response for another country an ocean away? One of the answers came through another man in the right place at the right time.

OPC deacon John Voss (Covenant OPC, Orland Park, Illinois) with his many years in the construction industry lent his expertise and began forming a plan. Voss made site visits, drafted plans, and oversaw the shipping of needed materials to the region. OPC teams repaired significant damage to the local church in Sendai. John later joined the Committee on Diaconal Ministries (CDM).

The mission also acquired a building that had been used for a dental practice but was destroyed by the tsunami. Short-term OPC teams spent hours mucking out the structure and hauling out X-ray machines, dental chairs, and boxes of teeth molds and dentures.

Other groups renovated the inside, and the building now serves as the Nozomi Center, a hub for community outreach and efforts to share the gospel in a land with few believers. Out of the ruins of disaster, God provided a place to offer the good news of redemption and to proclaim the glory of the God who makes all things new.

When God’s People Respond

Since the Japan earthquake in 2011, there hasn’t been another disaster that required major OPC relief efforts for an overseas location, but there have been plenty of other disasters closer to home.

Just a year after the Japan quake, Hurricane Sandy walloped New York and New Jersey. The response was another example of the Lord providing just the right people. Among the teams that helped with relief efforts, OPC member Raun Treible brought his HVAC expertise, just as snowflakes started falling on damaged homes. The late-season hurricane had flooded basements and destroyed heating systems, and many people faced long waits for repairs as cold weather arrived. Raun repaired ten systems in ten days with several hundred dollars in parts.

Nakhla says Hurricane Sandy also stands out in his memory because the hurricane hit two presbyteries at one time. And that planted a seed: How could the OPC equip presbyteries to respond quickly to needs in their own backyard?

By 2016, Nakhla started promoting the concept of presbytery diaconal committees owning more of the responsibility for disaster response in their own regions. He underscored the need again at a diaconal summit in June of 2017. Just two months later, three hurricanes hit three presbyteries within three weeks.

Those storms (Harvey, Irma, and Maria) accelerated efforts to organize relief through presbyteries. As local deacons respond to local disasters, they can also inform the wider denomination of specific needs through OPC Disaster Response.

That helps Nakhla’s team direct the OPC’s registered volunteers to places that need their skills. That’s been invaluable in multiple other spots, from Michigan to Florida to Neon, Kentucky.

But these efforts yield more than smoother logistics: They also promote the unity and affection of the church, as more OPC members learn about how to pray for and help their brothers and sisters, near and far.

And it encourages those who might feel particularly far away. After Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, Nakhla vividly remembers OP church planter Bradney Lopez’s response when Nakhla asked what message Lopez had for the broader church.

“Don’t forget us,” he said.

The God Who Remembers

One of the realities of major disasters is that people often do feel forgotten. When everyone has an emergency at the same time, it’s easy to wonder if help will ever arrive. And that’s especially true for those who have no church home at all.

Last fall, when Hurricane Helene brought catastrophic flooding to the mountains of North Carolina, the members of Landis Presbyterian (OPC) in Marion were spared, but they had a huge heart to help those who weren’t.

Once again, God provided just the right people in just the right place. Elder Mike Cloy had spent a significant portion of his military career in disaster preparedness. Another church member was an engineer, another a contractor, and one from Reformation OPC in Gastonia serves as a gifted volunteer coordinator.

Nakhla says he was amazed on the first conference call with Landis members as the small church plant organized their response. They realized they’d need a backhoe for some jobs, and one woman on the call chimed in: “They can use mine!”

“I thought, ‘These people are amazing,’” Nakhla said. “We’re going to be okay.”

And, by God’s grace, they’ve been more than okay. Over the past year, the church has seen dozens of volunteers help build homes for a handful of people in the community who lost everything. Pastor Johnny Serafini makes regular visits to the homeowners, and he uses those opportunities to pray and speak of Christ.

One of the homeowners said he originally thought the church’s offer to help was too good to be true. He’d lost his home and his beloved brother in the flooding, and he felt hopeless in the aftermath.

He still grieves his losses, but he’s grateful for the kind people from the OPC who came to help. And the church members are grateful for the opportunity to love this member of their community, to offer him a church home—and to point him to the hope of a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Since taking possession of the home, he has begun, with the church’s help, a Bible study for friends and neighbors.

Here’s to the next twenty years of that kind of ministry, Lord willing.

The author is an OP member and senior writer for Radical. New Horizons, December 2025.