Roar Of Relief Student Missions is a student-based, short-term mission team organization dedicated to engaging young people in service to God and others.
We aim to unite college students and college-aged adults on small, week-long mission and service trips.
Our goal is to share God’s love and the character of Christ through our actions and service.
Finally, we seek with our words to share the Gospel with our communities.
Upcoming Season
Past Mission Trips
Background — Hurricane Helene
Students With A Mission
Five students, armed with little more than a call to serve, traveled to Buncombe County during their Fall Break, two weeks after Helene, to volunteer with Samaritan’s Purse in the area.
Their work at a mobile home park in Swannanoah consisted primarily of working to clear out debris, cabinets, flooring, and furniture from a home that had been submerged in over 3 feet of water.
Kingdom Impact
The tasks ranged from tearing out entire strips of drywall, carrying out the bathtub and an entire row of cabinets, to sweeping the saggy subflooring and pulling nails out of the wall studs. In theory, they were meaningless, mundane, dirty tasks.
However, our team had an incredible opportunity to connect with the other volunteers working in that home. We also had the opportunity to hear that the homeowner had dedicated his life to Christ.
From the Team
The Fall 2024 Mission Team shared their experience with those back home, and you can see this here.
Background — Hurricane Helene
Hurricane Helene made landfall on the Florida coast on September 26th, 2024. Its incredible size and force continued through the middle of Georgia. High winds destroyed trees, roofs, and structures throughout the state in communities like Valdosta. Then, the storm dwindled into a tropical storm that unleashed destructive rains and flooding in the mountains of North Carolina and East Tennessee.
The Mission Continued
After the trip to Asheville, Hayden initially thought that his time in disaster missions was over. However, it wasn’t long at all before he felt that God was calling him to continue pursuing it, and so an early December trip to Valdosta, Georgia, entered the realm of possibility.
The Test Of Doubt
From the start, the Valdosta Mission trip seemed daunting. But soon God provided funding and the members of the team—so it appeared.
The night before Arrival Day, three of the four team members traveling with Hayden to Valdosta cancelled, and transportation fell through.
Hayden was discouraged and felt that God was telling him to stand down. But Gabriel, his best friend and the remaining member of the team, encouraged him and single-handedly rearranged all of the transportation and arrangements.
The team, now consisting only of two members—Hayden and Gabriel—spent their time in Valdosta clearing brush and fallen trees, ministering to homeowners, and connecting with fellow volunteers. Even though the outcome was disappointing to human expectations, Hayden and Gabriel did not regret moving forward with the trip. And Hayden believed that God had used the setback to test his faith and obedience, which, thanks to Gabriel, he was able to hold on to.
Background — Hurricane Helene
As Hurricane Helene carved its path across Western North Carolina, mountain streams and rivers flooded to five or ten times their original size. These floods carved the tranquil riverbeds into unrecognizable earthy cliffs and muddy flats, expanding far beyond their familiar banks.
However, the riverbanks were not the only thing transformed by the swollen streams. Homes, businesses, parks, and roads along the water were torn apart, with many being washed down entirely, scattered for miles down the raging rivers.
Questions Of Purpose
This time, once again, the trip was just two people—Hayden and Gabriel. And this time, their place with the team they were assigned to seemed almost valueless. The work, which consisted of laying wood and tile floors in the Riverwatch Bar and Grill, seemed many times to be progressing quite well without the RoR duo.
But many late-night conversations over those three days, as well as one very memorable conversation with the project supervisor, rekindled the same calling and conviction in Hayden and Gabriel—not just to continue on the trips, but to take it a step further.
Birth Of A Mission
Gabriel and Hayden both decided that forming a long-term project or organization was something that God was calling towards. Therefore, even before they began to travel home, they were brainstorming, setting up things, and planning out what the logistics of Roar Of Relief Student Missions would look like.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Background
Spokes Of Hope SC is a volunteer relief organization that has been serving on the ground in Chimney Rock since immediately after the flooding caused by the storms following Hurricane Helene.
Chimney Rock is still deep in the process of recovery, and we are still learning about the nature of accommodations, facilities at Chimney Rock and in the nearby Lake Lure, as well as accessibility to Asheville and other surrounding localities.
In March, water and sewage were not yet restored for the main stretch of the village. Portable facilities were available, and generators provided some limited hot water, as well as energy for preparing hot meals. At that time, the organization’s base camp had moved and was located a few miles outside of the village.
This Trip
The work day looked different for each person and on each day. In contrast to the first trip, where work revolved more around groups of specialized teams who volunteer their time to tackle a project like flooring, woodwork, et cetera, volunteers on this trip spent the first half of their week helping to rescue furniture and possessions from a condemned house.
This house on the hillside was almost completely undamaged by the storm, but the landslide that had passed just a few yards beside it had affected the slope and the road below, and the Department of Transportation needed to take down some of the hill in order to stabilize it.
As a result, the house itself, which appeared to be a vacation home and an Airbnb, was condemned, as it was in the way of this project. The homeowners told Spokes of Hope that they could come in and take out furniture, fixtures, cabinets, and anything else they desired.
The RoR team and a few other volunteers spent two and a half days moving these supplies from the house to a warehouse up the highway, where Spokes of Hope kept supplies that could then be used for other projects, restorations, and repairs.
The last day and a half were spirited and fun days of wood-splitting and chopping. Taking on the repetitive, sweaty, and rough work of splitting and cutting logs down to firewood, the RoR team kept their heads and hearts held high, took on and overcame the project, and had an unbelievable amount of fun while they worked.
Spokes Of Hope SC has continued to serve on the ground in the areas surrounding Chimney Rock over a year after the disaster.
The areas around Chimney Rock is still deep in the process of recovery. However, roads in and out of Chimney Rock and the surrounding areas are now almost completely accessible during the day, amid the construction and repairs taking place overnight.
By this time, water and sewage were available for the main stretch of the village. As of now, the organization’s base camp and lodging site are still in Bat Cave, and volunteers travel with their teams to the various jobs around the area.
This Trip
As Spokes of Hope began moving their work up away from Chimney Rock and toward Bat Cave and Gerton, they also began to work towards moving their base camp north to the site of the warehouse in Gerton. For volunteers, this meant three days of a single, backbreaking task: scooping, shoveling, clearing, and hauling dirt and mud out of a warehouse where water had flooded in.
They worked with shovels, wheelbarrows, and a single skid-steer, clearing the floor in between and around warehouse racks. Over the course of those three days, they had completed nearly all of the warehouse floor, both clearing and sweeping down until only one small corner of the warehouse still remained to be cleared.
Background
Grace Klein Community serves in the Birmingham area with a primary mission of providing relief to the poor and disadvantaged, specifically through their food rescue program and their clothing ministry.
Our team in Birmingham worked primarily in two places: The food hub and the clothing center.
The food hub was the location where rescued food was processed, checked to ensure it was safe to serve, and then prepared for distribution throughout the different ministries and recipients.
The clothing center received donations of clothing, as well as from thrift store consignment. These clothing items were sorted between two destinations: the shelves of the store, where people could come and take what they needed, and boxes that were sorted by size to be given with food boxes at drive-through ministry days.