Irma evacuees take shelter at Macon church for second time

When Hurricane Matthew struck last year, Mardoqueu Silva of Jacksonville, Florida, found himself in Macon with his family of six — and no place to stay.

A Seventh-day Adventist Church minister, he said the Lord led him to check the Macon phone book for Seventh-day Adventist churches in Macon, and the only one that answered the phone turned out to be providing a shelter.

The church was Wimbish Road Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the Lord didn’t have to lead him there this year as he fled from Hurricane Irma.

“This year they just called us and said ‘Do you guys need a place?,” Silva said. “It was actually very comforting to know that even though people were going crazy driving all over the place that we had a place where we didn’t even have to rush to get there first.”

He, his wife, their four children and other friends and family arrived at the church Thursday. They have been staying there since, sleeping on makeshift beds and in tents set up inside the church gymnasium. They said they were very happy with the accommodations. Church members made them breakfast Sunday.

Daphne West was among those helping with the cooking. She said they had about 15 evacuees total from Jacksonville and Miami.

“That’s what Jesus would have us to do,” West said when asked what led the church to open the shelter. “We are here to serve others in whatever way we can help out.”

Valter Deoliveira of Miami evacuated with his wife and two children. They had a hotel reservation, but the traffic coming out of Florida was so slow that he didn’t make it in time, and the reservation was canceled.

He got on the phone with friends and found out about the Macon church. He stopped at a store and bought tents for his family to stay in at the church.

“I’m so glad,” he said. “I found a nice place here.”

This story was originally published September 10, 2017 at 12:31 PM with the headline "Irma evacuees take shelter at Macon church for second time."