Amish Finish Final “Tiny Home” For NC Hurricane Victims

Plain church member Galyn Brubaker. Image: WYFF 4/YouTube

The Amish and Mennonite outreach to hurricane victims in North Carolina has been well-documented in the media. We’ve looked at several examples here – such as their work in Bat Cave, NC, or their efforts in the heavily-damaged tourist town of Chimney Rock.

Plain groups have been an essential part of a wider effort (not to ignore the many contributions of non-Plain volunteers) to help the area get back on its feet after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene back in September 2024.

Helene ended up being the deadliest hurricane to hit the US mainland since Katrina nearly twenty years earlier. And today – September 24 – happens to be the date that the hurricane originally formed.

So it’s quite appropriate that we should see some new reporting appear on this anniversary of sorts.

Now back in the winter of 2024-25, there were numerous stories on Amish building tiny homes for hurricane victims who’d lost their homes.

Tiny homes, often about the size of a medium-large storage shed, were seen as a fast, temporary accommodation solution for someone whose residence had been rendered unlivable, or while it was undergoing repairs.

Now a new story draws attention to the last of those homes being finished and ready for delivery. I suppose that is a good sign – reflecting that the need for such temporary housing has mostly disappeared.

However, there is still a lot to be done, as reported at WYFF 4:

In January, we told you about Just for Him Ministries and their work repairing homes and repairing storm damage across Western North Carolina. This week, we’re told the final tiny home will be delivered to a deserving Vietnam veteran.

Despite this good news, pastor Ken McPhee of Just for Him Ministries says there is still work to be done across western North Carolina.

“After a year, and you still have the people that are, you know, with just mold in their house. Can we come in and take the drywall out and gut the house? And so right now, like we said, we’ve got so many projects, right now, I wouldn’t say we wouldn’t be able to even get through all of them, by May of next year,” McPhee says.

It’s been a year of hard work, and there is still so much left for McPhee and countless volunteers across Hurricane Helene’s destructive path.

May of next year would mean another eight-plus months, at least, of work. Bravo to Just For Him and the other organizations who have committed to help for the long term.

Words from a Plain Volunteer

One thing of interest – one gentleman with a Plain appearance is interviewed on camera for the accompanying video report (embedded at bottom). On first view – and before I read the accompanying story – I couldn’t tell you his precise background or community.

He has a mostly-traditional, Amishesque, appearance, though he does have a mustache and seems to be perfectly comfortable speaking on camera (with a Southern-tinged accent).

Those two characteristics don’t rule out him being Amish, however, as mustaches (or unshaved upper lips, however you want to call it) are seen in a small handful of Amish communities. And some Amish people are perfectly comfortable going on camera.

I thought that it’s possible this is someone from one of the Michigan Circle Amish churches, a plain Mennonite church, or perhaps a “para-Amish”* group, of which there have been a number in the South.

However, I needn’t have wondered, as the written version of the story gives us confirmation of his identity – his name is Galyn Brubaker, and he is a Mennonite from Kentucky. Here’s what he had to say:

“We want people to know that they are important and that no matter what happens to them, there’s nothing so bad that God can’t work some good out of it,” says Galyn Brubaker, a Mennonite from Scotsville, Kentucky, “just because the newness and the news and all that might not cover it so much anymore, there’s still a need.”

The Scottsville area of Allen County, KY is home to several groups of Noah Hoover Mennonites. This is a group that can be mistaken for the Amish due to their visual similarities, restricted use of technology, and so on.

It’s also a good reminder that among the Plain volunteers, although the Amish tend to have better name recognition, there are a lot of Mennonites of different stripes volunteering as well.

An Inspiring Reminder

I find these stories still coming out both a reminder of the scale of the damage and disruption to people’s lives – as well as inspiring, seeing how much energy and eagerness to keep helping comes through in the story – and especially listening to the volunteers in the video(s).

I believe they contribute something very important with this work. But I also believe – and hope – they get a great big dollop of joy and satisfaction from doing it as well.

Though they would probably just say something like “it’s the right thing to do”.

*”Para-Amish”, in a nutshell, refers to a group of churches which maintain some practices and cultural markers similar or the same as the Amish, but who are not in fellowship with other Amish groups for various, often spiritually-related, reasons (for more see G.C. Waldrep’s “The New Order Amish and Para-Amish Groups”, Mennonite Quarterly Review, July 2008).