More than a decade ago, while serving as religion editor for The Oklahoman, I was blessed to hear — and tell in print — the incredible life story of Avis Duncan, mother of my friend David Duncan.
“God had a purpose for us,” Avis Duncan said as she reflected on surviving two of the largest tornadoes ever to hit the nation’s heartland. This week, I joined David Duncan, now pulpit minister for the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston, and his family in celebrating the life of Avis Duncan, who died Sunday, July 8, at age 83.

In his May 21 commencement address to graduates of Joplin High School — a year after a tornado devastated the Missouri town and killed 161 people — President Barack Obama highlighted the journey of senior Quinton Anderson, who plans to attend Harding University. Readers of The Christian Chronicle may recall that Anderson’s parents, Bill and Sarah, members of the 26th and Connecticut Church of Christ, died in the tornado.

The Central Church of Christ in Tuscaloosa, Ala., which lost its building in a tornado last year, has begun the rebuilding process.

The building of the Westside Church of Christ in Norman, Okla., sustained damage in a tornado Friday.

A mobile feeding ministry associated with Churches of Christ has served more than 4,600 meals to tornado victims and disaster relief volunteers in the southern Indiana community of Pekin, organizers said. Disaster Assistance CoC, sponsored by the Lake Jackson Church of Christ in Texas, set up its mobile headquarters at MJ Auto in Pekin — a business owned by a member of the Borden Church of Christ and located just a few minutes from a disaster area.

A March 2 tornado that ravaged the eastern Kentucky town of West Liberty caused severe damage to a Church of Christ. “Our congregation needs your prayers,” said Rusty Hutchinson, who leads singing for the West Liberty Church of Christ. Hutchinson’s late father, Charles, a longtime minister who died in 1996, oversaw the construction of the brick building where the 40-member congregation had worshiped since 1968.

Churches of Christ across the nation are cleaning up and offering aid after an outbreak of deadly storms across states including Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois. The Branson Tri-Lakes News in Missouri reports on a group of volunteers that helped clean up the property of the Branson Church of Christ after a storm swept through the area.

JOPLIN, MO. – Less than three weeks after an EF-5 tornado cut a six-mile swath through this southwestern Missouri community, the 26th and Connecticut Church of Christ assembled inside its damaged building for the first time. On Wednesday night, amid boxes of relief supplies and trash bags full of donated clothes, about 65 men, women and children squeezed into salvaged pews arranged in a V-shape in the church foyer.

Massachusetts last week became the latest state victimized by the deadliest year for tornadoes since 1950 — and the latest helped by Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Effort Inc.

JOPLIN, Mo. — It’s quiet here. The only sound in the hospital room is the steady hum of a ventilator pushing air into Lage Grigsby’s lungs. It’s a stark contrast to the haunting noise of Sunday’s Joplin tornado, which put him here. CNN reports from the scene on a familiy from the Rocketdyne Road Church of Christ in Neosho, Mo.