God Stories - Warren - The Storm Chaser

This is Warren.

Um Warren is on staff at his hands.

He's our facilities director.

How long have you been doing that role?

Uh since 2019, June 2019.

So yeah.

So six months into you being here was basically, or half a year or so in the past.

Yeah, I was just getting my feet wet, getting adjusted, and then COVID.

Yeah, that was an interesting time to have your job too, I'm sure.

So okay.

You've been doing that since that long.

Uh but you've been part of his hands for a while, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, for for I mean, so I came here first to the high school group when you were youth pastor.

Um, and so I guess that probably would have been like 2008, somewhere around there.

Okay.

Um my dad's a pastor, um, yeah, or was a pastor, he's retired now, uh, in Rome, Georgia.

And so I would go to church there on Sundays, but then I would attend attend youth group here on Wednesday.

So I have a weird memory of you like in a trash can one time.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Like goofing off, doing something like you were you and your your guys were just like fun.

Like it wasn't, it wasn't weird, it wasn't a trash, it was just was I got turned there's warning in a trash can.

Like, what's up?

Um, you were you were a lot of fun.

And then obviously uh you went to North Cup Christian, same school that I graduated from, my wife graduated from, and so I think we've had like we've known you to some degree at least for a long, long time.

And I'm so glad you're you're here.

Uh before you were on our staff, like your degree is you have a degree in what?

Mechanical engineering.

Mechanical engineering.

And before you were on our staff, okay, I'm probably gonna get this wrong.

You were working for a company that designed armored vehicles for the military.

Right, yeah, government contracts.

So we did anything from armored personnel carriers, mRAPs, uh, mine resistant, anti, you know, yeah, all that's of course, of course, yes.

Um and then low profile armored vehicles uh for embassies, uh stuff like that.

So you went from uh mechanical engineer, armored vehicles for for military purposes, facilities director, at a church.

At a church.

That's it.

Yeah, just a I mean it's a natural progression.

Yeah, hundred percent.

Like you can obviously see.

No, so here's actually I and this connects to what we're gonna really talk about, um, which is your the the ministry that God really uh called you to start and uh this really cool organization that and ministry sometimes we use like that as a a churchy word.

The actual word ministry means like to help people, like that's kind of the connection, like if it's uh so it is.

Um but back up.

My knowledge of you was obviously I got to know you pretty well when you were in the high school group.

And uh and then you're really good friends with Matt Simmons, who's our worship pastor, and Matt you know, Matt would talk about you a lot, and I became aware of the fact that you were a storm chaser.

Like, I guess tell tell that, like you stored you chased storms.

Yeah, still do to a certain degree.

It looks a little different now, but uh yeah, I've obsessed with weather ever since I was a little kid.

Um when the original Twister came out that kind of kick started me.

I just watched that movie with my uh kids like three days ago, the first twister from the mid-90s.

Hadn't seen it in a long time.

There's definitely stuff in it that I forgot about.

Right.

But uh I was just like, so don't say those words.

Yeah, don't say those words.

Um it's a little gem of a movie, though.

Honestly, it actually holds up pretty well.

Right, like side tangent.

Uh I don't think that there's another natural disaster movie that quite holds up to the original Twister.

It's just and there were a bunch of especially late 90s.

There's like asteroids, volcanoes, deep impact.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a whole that probably started that trend, right?

Right, probably.

But either way, um, yeah, so you you ch so you were always obsessed with weather.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, and so um I knew I I was obsessed with weather, but terrified of it at the same time.

Um so around the same time that Twister came out, uh Hurricane Opal, you know, had made landfall um and we lost a lot of trees during that.

Even up here in North Georgia, um, Hurricane Opal was kind of a big deal as far as games.

It was like I think it was like 93, 94, somewhere in there.

Don't quote me on that, but somewhere around there.

Um and uh you would have been pretty young, very young, yeah, yeah, like three or four years old, you know.

But I still like remember it, it was very you know impressed upon my mind at that age of all the damage that occurred and everything.

I was like, wow, this so this can happen, this kind of stuff can just happen.

This comes out of the sky.

You know, I was like kind of I don't know, just blown away by it, no pun intended, but um interest just very interested in it.

And so I knew when I could drive and stuff like that, that I wanted to kind of experience whether I actually get out and and drive around and and look at it.

And then I found out there's this whole subset of I thought it was just the movie twister, but no, there's a whole like community of people that drive around and look for water vapors.

I guess that's true.

Is so when I saw that movie, I saw it in theaters.

Yeah, I would have been in like sixth grade or so, fifth, sixth grade.

And I had an interesting experience with that movie because I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, which is like kind of right in the tornado alley thing.

So I had a lot of experiences with tornadoes.

I went to college in Missouri, uh, my freshman year, our campus got hit by a tornado, my car got totaled in that, uh, dorms were destroyed, no one, no one died or was seriously injured, thankfully, because people had warning.

But like growing up as a kid in in southern Missouri, I mean, tornadoes were like super common, and you go to a basement.

I grew up in a trailer for a l a good bit of my childhood, and we didn't have a basement.

And I do remember when we moved into our first house, it had a basement, and it just was like, oh, we're good.

We're I the thought of a basement was we're safe from tornadoes.

Right.

Because tornadoes happen quite a bit.

So when I saw that movie, I mean I was very familiar with tornadoes.

Right.

But um you're right, that's probably the first thing I ever saw that even introduced me to the concept of storm chasers.

Yeah who people are fascinated by it, want to drive to it to see it happen.

To see it happen, you know, kind of thing.

So you you saw that movie, you got introduced to that, and then you I think there were a lot of TV shows too that were.

Yeah, Storm Chasers on Discovery Channel, you know, and all those guys from those TV shows are all like they're all still chasing, and it's all kind of social media has kind of networked everybody together.

So it's a tight-knit community.

You see the same people year after year, yep, out in the Great Plains or whatever, you know.

So um that and that was kind of a cool aspect of it too, you know.

You kind of make friends that are interested in the same thing.

And these are like your college years, right?

Like you're you're just for for the experience of it, right?

You're going out and you're paying you're paying really close attention to weather.

Uh you know weather so well that anyone in the office we're like, hey Warren, what's it really?

I know what the weather reports say.

But we'll come to you be like, what are you what are your thoughts about it?

Yeah, I mean, uh you know, you you just you get so and I'm kind of with the engineering mindset, I I really and my wife will tell you, I get obsessed with things.

Sure.

And so I research it just to the the bitter end, you know, um kind of thing.

And so yeah, I am decently familiar with uh weather researching weather, and then in college I just remember this because I was still connected to you and um it you know it'd pray for you sometimes because I'd hear even some of your buddies would tag along, but I remember like, oh, Warren's out chasing a major outburst of storms.

Like there's there's a huge outburst in Oklahoma of tornadoes, and Warren's on his way to try to be there.

What was I mean, like obviously you made a lot of friends, and but what overall, what are some of the the experiences that you had in that season of life?

Um I mean, you know, as far as like the storm chasing goes, there's definitely we had some close calls.

I knew you had a couple of one in particular, I remember you said was really close.

Yeah, we so we chased um for the weather nerds that might be listening to this podcast at some point.

Hey, why not?

Um we did uh chase the May 31st, 2013, El Reno, Oklahoma tornado, which was the largest tornado ever recorded at 2.7 miles wide.

And it's actually the first time that storm chasers had passed away chasing a tornado, which is kind of surprising.

You'd think, okay, like, you know, there's been decades of people chasing violent tornadoes, but that was the first time that storm chasers that actually Twisters, the one, you know, Jonas, yeah, that guy, you know, you know, Princess Bright dude.

He's yeah, he's gone.

Gone.

Just gone.

Should have listened.

Driver took a radio tower right through the gullet.

You know, it's terrible.

But I mean, yeah, it was it was it was a really uh intense tornado, caught a lot of people off guard, caught us off off guard.

And actually, that's the tornado that kind of changed the trajectory of how I approached storm chasing, and eventually led to the formation of Sirens Project.

Sirens Project.

The ministry.

Um so Sirens Project was not a ministry to start out with, it was a drone research project.

Okay.

And so being an engineer, met a couple of buddies uh in college, and I kind of explained this idea.

You know, I'm really into storm chasing tornadoes.

There's a lot of unknowns about them, you know.

The forecasting for tornadoes is is really difficult.

Uh the forecasting aspect is is uh, you know, they're just they're very short term in the grand scheme of things, and uh they're erratic.

They happen fast, you know, very yeah, exactly.

So it's kind of one of those things where a lot of people are impacted by them, but we don't really know how to forecast them extremely well at the at the small level, you know, and so this whole drone project was to fly or build and manufactured drones, fly them into tornado-producing supercells and gather data to forward to the National Weather Service.

Um they have a lot of computer simulation models, um, but they don't have a ton of uh data from in the field to back those models up at the tornado level, if that makes sense.

Because they're they're hard to observe, right?

They're violent, they destroy things, and they're really dangerous to be near, and so you can't really sample them directly, you know, without putting yourself in extreme danger.

Right.

Um so that's where the drones came in.

So we had build these drones, fly them, you know, in and around uh tornado-producing supercells, get the data forward to the National Weather Service.

Um lose the drone.

Lose the drones that were sacrificial, yeah.

Um but we uh during that time we would come across communities totally devastated by tornadoes.

So you got to see the aftermath, like the immediate.

I mean, you're talking sometimes seconds to to minutes after a tornado has gone through.

People in their yard looking around and have in the first moments of just their brain going, Right, what do we where do we even Right.

We might be the first people that as Storm Changers, you might be the first person that that person sees directly following a catastrophe like that, you know.

Um, but we're on to the next one, you know, and doing that over and over again, you know, we kind of felt like man, we should really be doing something.

The whole goal was to help communities, right?

Like even that's the whole point of the research.

Yeah, the research.

Let's let's help people be prepared.

Right.

But even if they're prepared, tornadoes are gonna happen.

Right.

Like we're not making them go away unless we do with that twisters, the sequel.

The diaper powder.

Yes.

That I mean, I it's a lot of powder, but I think we can pull it off.

It seemed pretty plausible.

Yeah, we just have to we just have to get to every tornado and dump diapers into it.

Immediately.

Yeah.

So we still have to chase them.

We have anyway, jokes aside, but like you so you were and you're a Jesus follower, you've been following Jesus for a long time.

You have a big heart for people.

So here you are there to study storms, and it's probably really exciting in a lot of ways and thrilling.

I know you had that close call that if I remember right, you took a break for a while because it was a close enough call.

Yeah, yeah, I had to reevaluate some things, yeah, for sure.

But then you're seeing what what was that like?

I mean, on a heart level, what was it like being the first person to interact with someone who's just lost?

Um, I mean, the the hard part is you want to do more than you can in that situation, right?

Like you wanna me, you know, trying to fix things, I always want to fix things, you know, and like you try to you want to try to fix that that situation or help alleviate or take away some of that that burden, you know, it's like the first thing that I I think of when I come across somebody, it's like how can I do anything to just help alleviate some of the the burden of this you know this situation.

Um and it's just uh I don't know, you feel helpless too, because it's there's nothing that you can really do in that moment necessarily that is going to you know take you know take that pain away or take the shock away, you know, kind of thing.

It's just so overwhelming for the person you know immediately following.

It's not until days or weeks after that you can kind of start to process things.

Um but you're seeing you're seeing that and you something starts to happen in your heart.

Yeah, absolutely.

I was like, you know, there's there's more that we can do to serve these people in their you know in their immediate need.

And so the first thing we started doing, we're still doing the drone project, but we decided to, hey, let's chase with chainsaws.

Because one thing that we always came across was blocked roads from trees.

And yeah, uh one of the first things you know you can do is to get people uh medical attention or you know, just in contact with first responders.

That's that's like kind of the number one priority after something like that.

It's funny when I was talking about my college getting hit when I was I actually had a pretty crazy real life, not quite as fantastical, but like real life twister experience.

Right.

Um, and so that year, when I uh the tornado actually hit my campus, I was here in Georgia visiting Megan because she was still in high school and we were long distance.

I was a freshman in college, she was a senior in high school, we were you know high school sweethearts, but a year apart.

I I land in Kansas City about 20 minutes from my campus.

A buddy of mine picks me up because I had not parked, I had someone take me to the airport so I could save.

That's the funny thing.

I I wanted to save like 50 bucks on parking at the airport.

And had I just parked at the airport, my car would have been fine because I left it on campus.

A tornado hit my campus while I was trying to save.

So I lost my car.

Oh my god.

But anyway, my buddy picks me up and he's like, Yeah, man, the weather's crazy, and as we're driving back, it's like he, you know, this is 2003, I think.

And so, you know, cell phones not quite what they are.

We didn't have like smartphones with forecasts.

We're getting calls like, oh, it's crazy on campus.

They're telling everyone to get to this place on campus, you guys.

And so we're driving back, and I remember we get to like half of a house was blocking a road.

Right, right.

We were on our way to and we were like, Where okay, back up?

The weather's crazy.

There is literally half a house on this road that we can't we have to turn around, go somewhere else.

Right.

And so basically what we found out after we got to campus was that we probably we didn't see the tornado, yeah, but we were probably like in a terrible situation.

Right.

Without even realizing location wise, like we were on the in a car, there's a tornado here that is wreaking havoc.

Had we been maybe a mile this way, we probably or left the airport a little earlier or whatever.

Yeah, so we ended up getting there in probably five minutes after it had hit.

Complete chaos.

And it was just everyone it was nuts.

Yeah, yeah.

So and we had to go stay at a uh a fr they sent everyone to the frat houses because those are the safest places, yeah.

Basically, based on whatever.

And we were all in the frat houses, and then we had to wait until the next morning to even walk around and see the damage.

That's when I saw I saw my car and I was like, I didn't park there.

That was the first thought that I had.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

But anyway, so like you mentioned chainsaws.

I'm like, yeah, we we hit a blocked road.

We hit all that.

Right, right.

That's a real thing.

And so, you know, we started chasing with chainsaws in order to help clear roads um to allow EMS and first responders to access neighborhoods and stuff like that.

Um and full disclosure, we had no idea what we were doing with chainsaws at the time.

Not nearly to the level that we are.

Yeah, you're you're an expert with chainsaws.

Well, we uh you don't juggle them, but short of that, you can probably do about another.

Maybe I should start.

But uh yeah, so we um started doing that, um, fell in love with the the the chainsaw side of it.

Honestly, like you know, it was kind of solving a problem, and you had to think through how you were gonna handle the situation individually, like on on the on the tree level, you know, like you approach a dump period, yeah.

Yeah, it's dangerous, right?

Right.

You have to do it in the correct way to reduce risk, um, all that sort of thing.

And so we kind of just fell in love with that side of things and said, okay, if we're gonna do this, let's do this on a you know professional level and let's let's be the best at it that we can.

And so um I became an arborist.

We started, you know, kind of pouring all of our attention into doing the tree clearing side of things.

Um and so now we do the uh uh you know the immediate response, clearing roads and stuff, but then we also do the long-term recoveries where we're doing uh you know, trees on houses, uh just removal of hazardous trees and stuff like that, sometimes in a year or two later after the event.

And how much are you charging people for this service?

Oh man, we make so much money.

I bet it's zero.

It's free, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, everything we do is free.

And and that's how we became a nonprofit.

Actually, was we got our first donation.

Uh we weren't even a nonprofit yet, but we uh 2018 Hurricane Michael makes landfall, have some family and friends down there.

We get into the area about 30 hours after landfall, so it's pretty, pretty fresh.

Um and we get our first$400 donation because somebody's like, hey, you know, I know you're going down there to help these people.

We want to help the cause.

Um and then that started kind of catching on.

Because up to that point, I mean, you're literally, I mean, you're you're buying the chainsaws, yeah, you're paying for the gas, buying the water, supplies, like you know, my wife and I, we did basically we funded everything ourselves.

Um, and then family and friends would be okay, you guys are going down there, I'll buy some cases of water.

Well, that's how like I remember you weren't on staff yet at this time.

Like you said, it would have been maybe 2018.

I'm not sure when we first partnered with the yeah.

Yeah, if you're talking about the the the tornado, that was March of 2019, and I didn't start here until June.

So it was right before.

Okay, so that that so my memory of this was I mean again, knew you, um, you know, always man, always loved you and appreciated you and and respected you a ton and knew that you were doing this stuff, but hadn't really had a chance to really see it firsthand.

I remember there was there was whichever one you're talking about, there was disasters all the time, unfortunately.

Yeah.

But you basically said, Hey, you think the church could like partner with us in some way?

And I was like, absolutely.

Or maybe I can't remember what I'm saying.

Yeah, I asked if I could use the uh the student center lobby just uh stage things, right?

Yeah, stage things.

And you're like that's right.

How about we uh That's right.

You call me or we talked and whatever, and you said, Can I use the the student center lobby?

It'd be a great way to stage the stuff that we're gonna go take down there.

Right.

And I was like, well, yes, but also and we obviously made you pay the rental fee for the spare no I'm joking.

Yeah, we said obviously, yeah, 100% you can do it.

Um but what we we did was we said, well, what if we kind of what if we came alongside you and got the word out and people could bring supplies?

And so we just did, and it was just I think an email or something.

Yeah, it's an email, that's all it was.

Yeah, we had a huge turnout.

A huge turnout.

All of a sudden there's cases of water.

I think to the point where you guys were almost like What do we do?

And then we actually had this was a really cool part of the stories because that 99% of our volunteers um come from his hands.

Right.

You know, they're first responders, uh people in the medical field, people in the tree care industry, you know, those sort of people that found out what we do.

A lot of those people found out about us and are still serving with us today from that first email.

Yeah, because I remember I remember you the the response we got all like supplies, but almost to a point where it was a problem.

Like, how are we gonna get a trailer?

Yeah, we can't get all this down here, like Kimmy U-Halls and stuff, and then people were like, Hey, I got a trailer.

Glenn's Glenn, I was about to say, Glenn's huge part of our work.

And Glenn was like, Well, I'll I'll go down with you guys, and here's you can I can't remember if he went down or gave you the trailer.

He did, yeah.

He went down with a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a sort of snowballed and more and more.

And I remember it was shortly after that.

Um, our previous facilities director, great guy, he he had uh he had had a job offer to work in an apartment complex, and it was a it was honestly like You can't you can't turn that down.

It was a really good thing for his family.

There was nothing there.

And so we were like, Yeah, man, understand, do that.

And we were trying to figure out who's gonna be our next facility director, and it was actually Matt who came to me and said, You should talk to Warren.

And I was like, Well, Warren's a mechanical engineer who builds armored vehicles.

I don't you know, no offense, but I was like fixing air conditioning units and keeping the building like we have conversations about chips of paint, you know, paint chips of how to get that look at um you do a great job around here.

You f and you do fix a lot as an engineer.

You've been able to like fix things that otherwise we would have had to just hire people out for.

So that part of it I got, but I was like, man, it just seems like I don't see the career progression, I guess.

But then it hit me and we were talking about it, and Matt said, No, you should pray about it because so shout out to Matt.

Yeah, absolutely.

But he's like, You should pray about it because I don't think Warren's as happy in what he's doing as you know as maybe you think.

And and so then I had this idea, and I'm gonna give God all the credit for this.

It wasn't like I had some of it.

Right, right.

I was like, well, you know, one of the the tensions I know you had dealt with with sirens was every time you wanted to go on a trip.

I mean, it's like, well, you're you're you work at a job, yeah.

You get uh ten vacation days a year or whatever it is, but you gotta use those.

And I was like, Well, man, I remember telling you, like, I know in a lot of ways this is sort of below your your degree to a certain degree.

Um, but it's like the I think the agreement we had was that you can do as many Sirens Project is is a passion of yours, and I want to support that.

And so anytime there's a deployment, which is what the less language I've gotten from you deployment.

Trip.

Anytime anytime there's a sirens project deployment where you're gonna go do disaster relief to families, um, none of that will ever count as your vacation time.

That is that is literally view that as like part of your job.

Yeah, yeah.

And so uh I know when when that happened, you were able to come on here, if I remember right, especially in the first three or four years, there was just I mean, how many tricks?

Oh man, so yeah, I mean, th this was kind of interesting.

It's all God's timing, right?

Um and no you're absolutely right.

Uh sirens would not be where it's at without the opportunity of working for the church, just because I just remember being really excited.

Like, whoa, Warren could take this to a whole different level.

Right.

No, it's huge for us.

And uh yeah, I was I was not super happy at my at my job.

I loved, you know, the design aspect and solving problems.

Um won't mention the company name, but there's just some some ethical things that I really didn't agree with.

And so I was like, you know, I just felt kind of icky about it.

I was like, you know, I'd like to get out of here.

Loved all the guys I worked with, I'm in everything.

And so I was just like, but you know, this is not a company that I want to keep investing in.

And that was always in the back of my mind, like, how do I how do I serve people, you know, with my passion in this position?

And then you called me, kind of laid out the situation.

I was like, man, this is like totally out of left field.

Like working for a church, like this is crazy, you know, like never even thought about it.

Um, so I talked to Leah, she wasn't my wife at the time, but we were dating, and she was like, This is so out of left field, I think you should you should really pray about this.

And this this might be where God's calling you.

And so I prayed and prayed about it, and it was like, Yeah, this is this is this is the next step kind of thing.

And so, yeah, started here.

Um, but that that first year after working here, COVID hit, and there was a lot it was interesting because a lot of nonprofits um they're a lot larger than us.

And so there's a lot of I would say, and it's not it's not necessarily a bad thing, but you know, there's a lot of red tape and stuff like that.

Uh, so when COVID hit, there was kind of like this void that happened almost overnight of okay, are are we still responding or like how does this, you know, how does this happen or whatever?

And us being small, you know, we could we can mobilize a lot cle a lot quicker, we don't have as many people, you know, and we had to, you know, we did abide by all the the COVID regulations and a lot of our stuff's outside work anyways, you know.

So it's like kind of but uh because of that, there was a huge gap that we had the opportunity to fill.

You're Mississippi cutting trees down.

It's not like cops are like, hey, put a mask over.

Yeah, but yeah, right, exactly.

We already have a mask on.

Yeah, we have a mask.

We have a whole whole head system going on because we need to just breathe in painting.

Right, budget.

Saw dust.

Saw does, yeah.

Anyway.

Um so we actually did, I think, if I remember correctly, we did like twelve or fourteen deployments in 2020.

I remember it was a ton, and it was like I remember, and over the course of a few years, I'm probably gonna blend all it together.

It was like Texas.

Yeah, Texas.

You were in Iowa.

Zach, our camera guy went to Texas with us.

Did you?

Yeah.

Heck yeah, man.

Um so you're in Texas, Iowa, obviously, like Florida, Tennessee.

Basically, at this point in time, sirens, I I imagine like Central U.S.

Yeah, we did all the Southeast.

Right.

We were kind of like, we're chomping at the bit, trying to you know, do everything everywhere.

And and COVID was uh unique in the fact that it actually gave a lot of our volunteers more time to do stuff because like working remotely was like Yeah, Daniel Grisbeck, who's a huge part of your organization.

Absolutely, yeah.

Daniel's been part of his hands for a long time and he he started going, fell in love with it.

Right.

Yeah, he's on our board now, and uh all that stuff.

And I mean it was uh yeah, 2020, 2020 was absolutely wild.

We did figure out though shortly after that we as an organization need to kind of set up a region of where we focus on because we do have a limited amount of time with volunteers, you know.

So we'd usually do like four or five days at a time, right?

So three of them are travel days.

Yeah, you can't, yeah.

You don't get much work done.

So um at our current state, um we we operate in FEMA Region Four, which is the the southeastern United States.

So that's the Carolinas, Kentucky, Mississippi, and inward.

Right.

Um so Georgia, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, that sort of thing.

So that that's which makes sense.

First you do something big and then you're like, that was great, it was cool, but we're also learning like let's refocus a little bit.

Right.

And and so now I mean so that that was back in 2021.

You all these deployments, and you're showing up.

When we say deployment, you're showing up in the aftermath of natural disasters.

Yeah.

And you are offering your services.

You're you're just saying we're you're bringing supplies sometimes to help people.

I know the supply thing too is like, is that our primary focus?

Right, right.

We had to focus in as a ministry because we're like, do we do everything, or do we just be really good at one thing and that's what we decided?

Which I think is the right that's usually the right call.

And so so yeah, you're showing up, people are are just don't even know where to start.

You're showing up at people's houses saying, Hey, we're gonna clear these trees for you.

Right.

We're gonna for free.

Um and this would cost thousands.

Thousands of dollars, yeah, especially emergency tree rates an hour.

Yeah.

Or take or take like so much time to even get approved via insurance and all that kind of stuff.

And you're just like, no, we got it.

You're putting yourselves at risk because this is often dangerous work.

I mean, yeah, storm damage is not it doesn't really compare like residential tree work is obviously very dangerous.

Tree work in general is like splintered into basically just compression and tension forces are just exponential sharp edges everywhere.

Debris.

Yeah, all that.

And you're you're doing that, you're cleaning up stuff, you're basically going to families and just saying, Hey, we're here to help you.

What what is like what how do people respond to that?

It's funny.

Uh so people respond a couple of different ways.

There's some people that are like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing.

You know, like thank you so much.

It's very, very uh gracious and and thankful that we're that we're there uh to uh to help them.

And uh that's typically what you get.

Some don't believe you.

Like we've had people that are like, there's no way this is possible.

You know, like no, I'm dead serious.

Like, you know, we're here to do it for free.

And we've actually been we've been turned down a couple of times um just because like there's a catch to this.

Yeah, you know, like there's no way and there's no way like you're here to scan me somehow.

Right.

And I was like, well, here's our contact.

All right.

And if you change it, and sometimes Hey.

Yeah, I think I will take it.

Yeah, you're like, yeah, no problem.

Yeah.

Um you've partnered with other organizations, you've partnered with other churches, right?

I mean you've found pla you sleep in churches sometimes.

Oh yeah, yeah.

We sleep in some of the weirdest places.

We slept in an old roofing company uh warehouse uh that was being fed by a backup generator in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Um and it was I mean, and it's about some of the best food in the world though.

Like if you can imagine, it's like you actually if you don't gain weight on a deployment, like you're doing something wrong.

You're probably sweating a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

So you're there, people have to just be almost I mean, they have to be so emotional, I would imagine.

Yeah, there's a there's definitely a lot of emotions.

Um and we always say like, you know, the the tree work stuff's important.

Like, you know, it it's one, it's it's one of many parts of the process that someone has to complete in order to move on with their life after after a tornado and or a hurricane or flood, even.

Um it's usually one of the first things that needs to get done just so you can kind of safely move around your property, and uh especially if you have a tree on your house to go into the structure safely.

Sure.

That tree needs to be removed uh to prevent further damage to that structure as well.

Um so it's one of the first things that that that can happen once your immediate like medical needs are met, if there are any.

Um but we always say, you know, it's just a vessel to be able to introduce ourselves and oftentimes just listen.

Yeah.

And that's sometimes the most important thing that we do as an organization before we even pick up a chainsaw is you know, the the trees are just a vessel for us to be able to kind of hear, you know, the pain that they're dealing with and then you know, introduce the introduce the gospel.

So yeah, you get to share your faith, you get to pray with people.

Right.

And I imagine they're they're pretty receptive in those moments, you know what I mean?

Because they're being it's like what Jesus did.

He loved people first.

I like I love the story of the woman caught in adultery because you know that story ends with Jesus saying, Hey, you know, change your life, repent, basically, right?

But before he tells her to do anything different, he shows her this incredible act of of love, and he actually puts himself at risk to do it.

He has to like stand up to the people who want to stone her, and they're they're pretty angry at Jesus too, so they've they can stone him if they you know they're cool.

Yeah, but that's what you guys do.

You you lead with love, you show up, you put yourselves at risk, you work really hard, you lead with love, and then you have this chance to share your faith and to pray with people and encourage them.

I'm sure some of the people you work with are already believers and you just get to low on them.

Um yeah, have you have you seen I mean have you seen people's hearts kind of just change?

Oh yeah, yeah, for sure.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I you know, there have even if you're a believer, you experience something sometimes that you know takes you aback and you you wrestle with God on certain things, right?

Um and there's been several moments where a person experiences a tornado or hurricane, experiences loss, um, whether it's a loved one or just all their property, everything they've worked for, you know, and that like I said, they were a believer, but their their faith is being tested in this moment.

And they they cry out to God and they say, you know, like are you asleep at the wheel?

Where are you in this moment?

And then 45 minutes later, a team shows up and say, Hey, we're here to take care of all this for free.

And it's like they just prayed.

Yeah.

I mean, I can't tell you how many times that's happened.

Like, we literally show up and they're like, We were praying this morning that somebody would come and you know take care of these trees or help us out or show us some direction, get us started.

Yeah.

And here you guys are.

I was like, I don't, you know, and it's just then you see it when you just talk about the heart being changed.

They were believers, they wrestled, and they're like, I know God's got me.

Yeah.

You know, it's really it's really cool to see, you know, see that moment.

Um I can tell your passion because like when you're passionate, you start banging on the table.

Yeah, like like a like drums, you know, people, and you're like, you're having all these that if you're listening to the audio version of that, that is Warren.

Right.

So excited.

No, it's so good.

You're so excited that you're like, look, God is doing this.

So okay, I want to fat I want to hang on that for a second.

Um the the God part, because so far we've been you know telling the story, and obviously God's been in this the whole way.

It might be so assumed by me and you because we've just we work at a church and we see this stuff all the time.

Um suffice it to say, you start this, you you chase storms in college, you have some close calls, you see the the aftermath, you have a big heart, you see the aftermath of the devastation, you're like, I want to do something.

You start doing that, you start doing small things, clearing trees to make room for EMS.

And I even remember there was a huge set of storms we had here in Georgia not that long ago.

And you guys were able to clear, you were you were like clearing paths that no one else had been able to clear yet.

So that people who were cut off from emergency services.

It was Hurricane Haleen, probably that that was the second one.

Yeah, we did Hurricane Haleen, spent a lot of time there.

Yeah, you were like literally, we're the first people to open this road.

Right, right.

I mean that's really cool stuff.

So you're doing that kind of stuff.

Um, taking supplies.

We've had some really big moments.

We had that one time where our entire lobby, the new news crews came and showed up and filmed how much stuff.

It was like really incredible.

And then I I've seen, and we as a church, we've been able to invest.

Your partner, Sirens Project is a ministry that we help fund.

Yep.

Um, and then there's some equipment that we've been able to come along.

You guys do a lot of work to raise money yourselves, but we've come alongside you, and there's a skid steer, which I got to learn what that is.

Right.

It's a little thing that lifts things.

Yeah, it's like a little tank that hydraulics.

Now you're taking that kind of equipment which can clear.

Oh man, that's a game changer.

This last year or so we we added the boom lift.

That's right, 55 foot boom lift.

I've been to the top of that.

Yeah.

It's terrifying.

It's like a little carnival ride, cheap carnival ride.

But you're able to get to places you could never have got with that.

So it's it's expanding and your capabilities have have grown.

Um but kind of shift gears.

You you kind of mentioned a second ago, even if you are a believer, sometimes you see something that makes you kind of wrestle.

Right.

Okay.

A lot of people we were talking about this a little bit yesterday.

A lot of people have moments where they are a believer, they love the Lord, they believe in God, whatever it is, whatever you want to say, but then disaster strikes, whether it's natural disaster, biologic, sickness, whatever.

Sickness, you name it.

But even as we're recording this, I mean we're in the immediate aftermath of this devastating flood that happened in Texas, and a girl's camp was hit by it, and there's just tons of tons of death, loss, but a lot of it's little children.

Right.

And that hits like strikes a different thing.

It hits a different core in your heart.

A lot of people when they they see those disasters, they they do have this like I'm not sure if I can believe in God kind of crisis.

Right.

Because how could God, if God's up there, how does this happen?

I mean, what what's it like what's it like for you being like you're not just watching reports on the news or seeing like little 30-second clips, like, no, I'm I'm I'm here, I'm at their home, I'm here for hours.

I'm seeing just how broken this is, and yet you have this really strong faith.

You know, it can't it can be difficult.

However, I will say, um, we draw from other experiences that we've had in the field, and I think this this really helps helps us be able to communicate um hope to to to people that are that are struggling with that.

Um and even even in my own life, if I have a moment, we you know we call them uh the Joshua Stones or a moment in your life where God showed up, and it's funny how easily we forget about those moments, you know.

Yeah, we're here and then he did and they and you mentioned Joshua Stones in the Old Testament.

When God would show up for people, they would often they they took stones from the Jordan River.

Right.

When God made it like dry, yeah, make it cross it, and they kept those and they made a little monument because like we don't ever want to forget.

Right, absolutely.

We have a tendency to forget those things.

Forget those.

For us, it's like post on social media and then forget it.

Move on.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah.

Yeah, and so we you know, for my faith and for people that were serving in the in the field, um, drawing from other experiences of where people have un you know, just like there's people that have a moment where, okay, how did God allow this to happen?

Or why did God allow this to happen?

Or, you know, like, is there a God now?

Like, you know, kind of thing.

For that, for that same side of the coin, the other side is people that this strengthened their faith or still had no wavering doubt that God is for them.

And it's those experiences, uh families that we get to talk to in the field that we draw from and get to use those as examples to minister to people who might be struggling with that.

Or, like I said, in our own life, I'll remember, yeah, but this family, you know, had had this happen, my problems aren't nearly as big as that, and they still were like just so steadfast and and and trusting.

How can I complain when I've seen people go through far more and be strong like you have those moments?

And so basically, like I I think I know the answer to this question, but you know, maybe for many, working like you do in disaster relief and seeing the devastation and the pain in and it's not people didn't deserve it, you know what I mean?

Like they're just living their life and um you're saying essentially that it's not a situation where seeing all that up close and personal has made you less certain that God is real and good.

Made it more certain.

It's made it more certain.

More certain, absolutely.

Yeah, and I and I would encourage people, you know, you see a disaster um and you know, like ha you might struggle with that, right?

A natural disaster, you might struggle with the loss and everything.

Go and uh volunteer with an organization, you know, especially like a faith-based organization, and be on the ground and talk with these families, and just see go in there with an open mind and see see what God does.

And every time He shows up.

It's incredible.

Every single time.

And so it it only yeah, it only strengthens uh our faith.

I know a lot of a lot of the guys and girls that volunteer with us would say the same, same exact thing.

There's just too many, too many coincidences in stories of of needs being met that were orchestrated behind the scenes kind of thing.

So um yeah, it's really cool.

I wouldn't encourage anybody to to go volunteer, whether it's with us or somebody else, and just yeah, that's watch God show up.

That's really good.

See it for yourself.

Okay.

Don't take my advantage.

I have not been on a trip yet.

Maybe you should.

I'm not against it.

I think I'm more open to it.

I used to joke.

I I'm actually like kind of clumsy with uh mechanical anything.

Yeah.

And uh I remember being like, I I will I will hurt you don't want to hand me a jets up.

Hey, but you know what?

The the cool thing you I can hold ladders.

Right, right.

You probably don't need that anymore.

No, we got the boom lift.

Right.

No, no.

No, but seriously, I mean there's there's a huge need.

Yeah, like the saw stuff, you know, it's there's training, whatever, blah, blah, blah.

But there's also the ministry side of things that happens every single time that is the reason why we're wielding into the city.

That's what that's what I totally look.

And I'm not saying this like I try to get out of hard labor, but maybe.

But like if I went on those trips, you'd be like, Where's Justin?

Like, we're all sweating, cutting stuff down, and I'm just like sitting in this place just talking to this lady and just praying with her and whatever.

That's I do hospital.

I do hospital visits all the time.

I was at a hospital yesterday with a woman that's got stage four cancer, and we're we're praying together.

And I was at another hospital visit last week uh with another really serious situation, and this lady was like, It's probably the worst part of your job.

I was like, actually, it's my favorite part of the job.

And it really has become it's not that I like seeing people in pain, right?

But I similar to you, I I told this person I have seen God's faithfulness because I I am with people often in the immediate aftermath of death or of sickness, and I'm there, I'm in the hospital, or I'm at the the funeral.

It's like it's it's hard stuff.

Yeah.

But it's not it's been the opposite for me.

I'm not less certain of God because I'm in those moments I'm more certain of God because I've seen Him uh carry people through when they I you can just tell they don't have the strength.

Yeah.

They they are not they're not going to make it through this on their own strength, but God carries them through.

I've seen it.

Yeah.

So absolutely.

And you know, we like I said, we talked to the families that have experienced, you know, like the Kentucky tornado, the Mayfield tornado, super devastating, um where parents have lost children in a natural disaster and not once blame God for it.

And when I when I hear of someone's faith or experience someone's faith that's just so rooted in a situation like that, I'm like you know, just my my my it was a weird way to say my faith XP goes up, you know, or something like that.

Yeah, it's like an old video game, you're like you get a new ability.

Yeah, that's just kind of I don't know.

It's just uh yeah, it definitely it definitely strengthens my face.

So I I know this is gonna bless a lot of people, and I will tell you, like, as we wrap up, your story's really cool because here's what I've seen, and just as your friend, you know, not not like because I'm your pastor, but we are uh we're not that far apart in age, like how old are you?

34.

There you go.

So I'm I'm 42, I'll be 42 this morning.

Right, so we're not too far.

Yeah, it wasn't 10 years.

Yeah.

Um it is so cool to watch someone who is so gifted, intel you're super intelligent, man.

I'm not just trying to like make you feel good, but like you're I appreciate that.

You have a mechanical engineering degree, that is not easy to get.

And uh and I don't think you got it by the skin of your teeth either.

I don't think you were like, yeah, I you know.

I enjoyed it, so yeah, yeah.

That was fun.

Like you're passionate about it, and you could have taken your career in a in so many different areas.

Um probably made a lot more money too, like honestly.

You know, sorry.

Um but you have surrendered everything you have to the Lord, and he has blessed your minute.

Like the Sirens Project is so cool and it's grown so much.

And I I I have a tendency to believe that, like, yeah, so far this it's done this, it's probably there's gonna be a moment where whatever it's taken up to this point, it exponentially increases.

And we always joke about when you're running sirens full time and how you should still keep an office here.

Yeah, yeah.

And then we won't make you do stuff around the building, we'll just ask you questions.

Hey, Warren, before you go out to the street.

No, I'll still be here to do stuff.

Like, uh, what's going on with that thing, you think?

Right, right.

Um, is this supposed to make that noise?

Is this supposed to make that noise?

Can you fix that?

But no, you've surrendered everything to Jesus, and I don't know, is Sirens Project more than you ever thought it would be at this point in time?

Yeah, oh yeah, for sure.

I mean, yeah, it's funny, you know, it thinking about the first time like talk about Hurricane Michael.

We drove my exterra down there with like a couple cases of water.

We bought our first chainsaw with that$400 donation that came in, you know, kind of thing.

And uh Yeah, I just think about that.

And we thought we were we bought that farm boss, that 270, that steel MS 271 farm boss, and we're like, man.

Look, think of all we can do with this.

Yeah, here we go.

And then years later, you have a fleet of chainsaws, you have a skid steer, you have a boom lift, when you're going places, you're working on a crane truck right now, which is absolutely insane.

You're taking like a literal fleet with you when you go places now, and all these people jumping out, and it's it's it's amazing.

I think that it's like you never underestimate what God can do with a fully surrendered life.

Never underestimate that.

And you're you're like a living, breathing example of that, and it's really cool, man.

Can't wait to see what happens next.

Yeah.

You think we've got the air conditioning unit in the student center figured out?

I think so.

Okay, good.

Yeah, no, I think I just made it and shipped it.

But we really need yeah, no.

I gotta put a thermostat in here, though.

I think this one's yeah, yeah, it is a little warm in here.

Yeah, it's okay.

I thought it was just the lights.

So that doesn't help, but yeah, yeah.

All right.

Well, man, thanks for for being on.

I can't wait to share your story.

Yeah, it's really cool.

Appreciate it, man.

All right, man.

Take care.

Yeah, yeah.