A Manitoba family is giving thanks after a group of Bible college students came to their rescue following flooding in their home.
Last week Steinbach was hit hard by rain with a little over six inches of rain falling within 24 hours, and all that that rain has to go somewhere. In a lot of cases, that rain went into people’s houses.
Patrick Friesen was one of Steinbach’s unfortunate residents who experienced flooding in their homes. He explained that water backed up out of the storm sewer and flooded their basement. “We ended up having several inches, it was pretty nasty.”
Thankfully, Friesen was able to recruit some help. “I used to work at Steinbach Bible College and so I have a lot of connections there. Called up a few of those connections, one of them being my daughter, and she brought a bunch of her friends, all alumni. And then I went, hey, wait a minute, maybe there be some students.”
So he connected with Randy Krahn who runs their Pursuit program, and asked if there would be any students willing to help out. “And so six college students didn't know any of them prior, they’re just like ‘sure!’”
He says they got the entire basement cleaned out. “I mean, there's still lots of work to do, but what they got done in three to four hours, it would have taken us weeks, months to do.”
Friesen says the students really lifted his spirits. “They're having fun, they are marvelling at the smells of the disgusting water, getting stuff splashed on them. We warned them that they would need to take showers and make sure to wash their clothes well afterwards.”
Nathan Krahn was one of the SBC students that came to help out.
He shares how he got involved in the situation.
“We got a lot of rain, and we're driving through town, there's vehicles flooded, we can see basements are flooded. And my leader, Randy Krahn, had mentioned to all of us Patrick's basement was flooded and he needs some help. Right away there were like five us that had just jumped on the opportunity.”
He says they were there for around three hours mopping up water, ripping out floors, and bringing things upstairs.
“We were taking out trim and taking apart couches and just doing whatever we could to help him get everything out.”
Krahn says they had four or five people there already, but then once they showed up, it was go go go!
“Every room got emptied pretty fast once all of us showed up, all the extra hands, it's like everyone just knew what to do, everybody knew their role, and we just hammered down.”
Krahn explains the Pursuit program involves serving the community and helping people in need. He says it’s important to do things like this, and help each other whenever the opportunity arises.
“It lets the community know that there are other people out there willing to help, even if we don't know each other. I'm not even from this area, but whenever I'm able to give a helping hand, it's important for whoever I help to know that there's people willing to help them in this time of crisis.”
“Our goal at SBC is to show people that we're Christ-centered and we want to serve and help people, and for that reason, I think it's important to help people,” he adds.
With files from Kenton Dyck