First Presbyterians in Minot, ND Help Flood Victims

The flood waters are finally beginning to recede in Minot, ND.  Although there is some warning about the waters rising again near Foxholm, residents are experiencing the all clear in some areas to begin to return home and start the long recovery process of tossing out their wallboard and beginning again.  The Red Cross disaster newsroom have documented the entire process of this disaster, that has affected thousands.

The difficulty of Red Cross, Salvation Army, the National Guard and US Public Health Service officials has been remaining healthy while joining the city and state officials in bringing disaster relief to the city.  The Souris river is heavily tainted by oil and pesticides. 

On one of my evenings free, I read that the First Presbyterian Church of Minot, ND was going to help in a unique way.  They were going to host the opening of the Lincoln Elementary School, until their building was ready to welcome students.  I wrote to the church, and received this reply.

Hello Diana,


Thank you for your recent inquiry about our relationship with Lincoln Public Schools. Here is the short version. Because of the flood damage to so many of our public schools, buildings with capacity (and out of the flood zone) were targeted by the Public School Board as potential temporary locations to house school students. One of their goals was to keep as many of the kids together as they could to give them more of a sense of normalcy since so many of the families’ lives were disrupted by the flood. One of our elders is a school principal at another public school and she was asked if our church might consider hosting Lincoln School. Wanting to help the community as much as possible during this time of crisis, we said that we would gather together our session members and trustees and listen to their proposal. After a time of questions and answers they left and we voted unanimously to move ahead and organized a small committee to work out the details. Our small committee then met with the Lincoln School Principal, the superintendent, the assistant superintendent and the financial person. Both sides spent time figuring out how to make this work with the least impact to our regular everyday activities. We have agreed on everything that is to go into the contract and will be signing one soon. After that meeting many of our members (school teachers, principals, retirees) and others went to work preparing our education (Sunday School) wing for our new guests.


All I can say is that God had his hand in this from the very beginning and had all of the people he wanted prepared and ready. To quote Henry Blackaby, “God is always at work around us.” “God invites us to join him in his work.”


We are happy to be able to provide some normalcy to kids whose lives have been turned upside down and bless them and others at the same time.


His servant,


Mark Frueh / Lay Pastor
Outreach and Discipleship Coordinator
First Presbyterian Church
1000 NE 3rd St
Minot, ND 58703