By J.A. Dunn

MYAKKA — The Myakka River near Sarasota was creeping up on Jim VanFleet, and he didn’t even know it.

VanFleet, a member of Old Myakka United Methodist Church, was vacationing with his family in North Carolina when he received an urgent call inside a movie theater on his cellular phone that it was only a matter of time before the river overflowed. And because his home is close to the river, it would only be a matter of time before it succumbed to the water.

He packed up his family and left at 9:45 p.m., arriving home at 8:30 a.m. the next day.

VanFleet, his wife and 10-year-old twin daughters frantically moved computers and family scrapbooks, but before they could finish another alarming call arrived, this time notifying them the levee had broken and they needed to evacuate.

Five minutes later the driveway was six inches under water, and 30 minutes later the water was waist deep. Another 30 minutes later the water would have been above their heads.

Everything inside the 2,700-square-foot home was gone, leaving the VanFleets with little.

A series of continuous storms producing near-constant rains caused the river to overflow in mid-June, flooding homes, farmland, businesses and roads within one mile of it. The conference’s Gainesville, Lakeland, Leesburg and Tallahassee districts also had flood damage.

VanFleet vows to rebuild. “It’s just stuff that can be replaced,” he said. “My family is fine, and that’s the most important thing.”

The school teacher spends a large amount of time at the Old Myakka church, which the family has attended for 10 years. The church has become a kind of flooding crisis management center, providing breakfast, lunch and dinner for 150 workers and victims every day, portable showers set up by the Salvation Army, washing machines and dryers, and other services. It is also working with other groups, like the Florida Baptist Men of the Florida Baptist Convention, to help affected residents.

VanFleet helped volunteers from the Florida Baptist Men strip his home down to the foundation.

The group of 50 arrived in July. Like the Florida Conference Disaster Response team, the group arrives in an area shortly after a natural disaster. The volunteers’ first task is to do what they call “mud out”—removing destroyed furniture, carpet/flooring, sheetrock, and insulation; then, sanitizing the remaining wood, walls and flooring to kill mold.

The volunteers performed an estimated 1,600 hours of labor at a cost of more than $25,000 for the 22 homes they completed.

The Rev. Marion Sortore, pastor of Old Myakka church, said the day after the flood she prayed God would give her direction in helping the people because it was overwhelming to go from caring for her flock of 30 members to hundreds of hurting souls.

“I just remember going to bed telling God this was so much bigger than I am and that I didn’t know how to do this,” said Sortore, who is at the church from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. every day. “When I got up the next morning, I had a to-do list in my head.”

And she hasn’t stopped since. Sortore is still finding homes in remote locations where people don’t know help is available.

A 76-year-old woman met Sortore with a shotgun when Sortore arrived at her flooded property on the banks of the Myakka River. The woman was leery of Sortore, but Sortore returned to leave supplies and a washing machine for her. Sortore next saw the woman at a communion service held in the middle of the road.

Slowly all the needs are being met. Sortore hopes to add a 4x4 pick-up truck to haul housing materials.

“I see miracles every single day,” Sortore said. “We visited a woman who had mold growing in her carpet, but she didn’t want it removed because she didn’t have anything else to put down. I told her we would take care of that and didn’t know how we would do that. When we returned to the church there were rolls of new carpet someone had donated. When we run out of food someone shows up with a new pot of food.

“When you step out on faith, it makes fertile ground for God to make miracles. I’ve never been this exhausted, but I’ve never been this spiritually filled.”