‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’” The group helped organize donations at Biltmore Church, unloading trailers and organizing the flow of traffic in what has become a supply distribution center. “NGU has great relationships with local churches, and we utilized connections to see how we could be help and mobilize our students,” Plyler said.
NGU President Dr. Gene C. Fant, Jr. said the community’s response will be one of the lasting impacts of the storm. “For a generation, students will now talk about ‘that hurricane’ and their experiences during the following days,” he said. “That means that for a generation, students will recount how well their faculty mentors and staff leaders helped them to navigate
C AL LI N G
“When I went to North Greenville, my goal was to be an international missionary,” said Will Broadus, 2012 Interdisciplinary Studies alum who concentrated in Christian Studies and Business Administration.
Broadus’ passion for missions and ministry developed during his high school years and grew deeper at NGU. “When I learned about the ideas of an unreached people group, people who have never heard about Jesus, that just really stuck out to me,” he said. “The reason I did interdisciplinary studies was because I took a missions class my first semester and we were talking about a lot of the countries where there’s unreached people, you can’t get in on a missionary visa, you have to have some other platform, so I felt like it was definitely honed and crafted there.”
Broadus followed his call and became a missionary overseas after graduating, “My family and I did go to east Asia as missionaries, but we learned through a series of events that in church planting, there’s not a lot of focus on poverty- impacted areas,” he said. “In some ways, poverty-impacted areas are unreached.” Broadus is now living and serving on
mission in a poverty impacted area of Greenville as a church planter and pastor at Reconcile Church.
“Even from secular statistics, religion is declining the fastest among the poor and I felt burdened by that, so when we moved back, I knew I wanted to essentially try to be a missionary in a poverty-impacted community,” he said.
Broadus planted Reconcile Church in 2018 and has seen God working through the church in many powerful ways over the years but has also experienced some challenges.
“One of the most encouraging things is that we’ve seen people come to the Lord from some very difficult backgrounds, things ranging from drug addiction to legal troubles,” he said. “There’s been some cool cases of the Lord saving people who are far away from Him and He’s done that not just through one person, but through the witness of the church as a whole.” “A person gets in the orbit of our church, and they get these multilayer relationships, and I think a lot of that they can see God’s love uniquely through multiple people and it usually happens over time,” Broadus said. “It’s not like day one and they become a Christian, but they get involved
difficult circumstances and showed the love of Christ to them in specific and tangible ways.”
NGU’s Tigerville campus also received relief help following Helene.
A team from North Carolina Baptist’s Turett Camp traveled more than three hours to help cut trees and clear debris on campus. Other local ministries provided funds to feed teams that were helping with the clean-up.
“The care, professionalism, and selfless service of individuals too numerous to name gives testimony to their love and commitment to NGU. We are overwhelmed with gratitude for each person,” said Executive Vice President Rich Grimm, who coordinated the university’s response to the September storm. “Many in the community
sprang into action, even during Helene’s strongest winds and rains.”
Dr. Jared Thomas, NGU’s Vice President of Campus Ministries and Student Engagement (CMSE), said the students who stepped up during the storm provided a Christ-like example of what it means to love your community.
“What stood out as a constant encouragement was the selfless commitment seen in the CMSE student leadership team,” he said. “I could not be more proud of and grateful for these student leaders. They proved that they are here to serve our student body in both the good and the bad. More importantly, they served in a way that, I believe, followed the humble and sacrificial example seen in Christ (Philippians 2).”
Will Broadus (’12) and his wife, Becca, with their children
in our community and slowly the Lord works on their heart so that’s been super encouraging.” Cultivating relationships in the community is essential for Broadus’ ministry. Though it is a blessing to live in and grow a strong community of believers, there also is hardship for those who live in poverty-impacted areas, which can make intentional discipleship challenging. “There are addictions, and some people
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