Eight Days of Hope's Steve Tybor always tells people they can do one of three things to help the ministry: pray, volunteer, and donate.
But as far as he is concerned, "the most important thing" is prayer. It is a priority every time the staff gathers, for every deployment, and at the start of every project.
For a ministry that responds to disasters, rebuilds homes, feeds disaster victims, and helps women and children rescued from trafficking, Tybor asserts there are plenty of people to cover in prayer – the ministry's partners, disaster survivors, the volunteers who travel on their own dime and take time off from work to be "a glimpse of Jesus in a very dark world."
"There's nothing like the power of prayer," Tybor declares. "If you can't come hang out with us, if you can't sow into the ministry, that's okay. You can pray."
"It doesn't have to be a 20-minute prayer," he adds. "Just lift up the name of Eight Days of Hope and all the volunteers in those four arms of the ministry and the people that we're serving."
Eight Days of Hope began in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. Since then, the ministry has led 63,000 volunteers and done about $96 million of work in the name of Jesus, and it continues to serve communities with rapid response teams, rebuilding, mass feeding, and safe homes.
In the wake of Winter Storm Fern, which stretched over 2,000 miles and impacted dozens of U.S. states, Eight Days of Hope is deploying a rapid response team to remove dangerous trees, clean up debris, and muck homes in Oxford, Mississippi.
The mass feeding arm is also serving warm lunches to multiple communities in the northeast corner of the state, which saw some of the most crippling ice impacts in the South.
