Rhetta Mayfield of Mayflower still cries when she talks about the 2014 tornado that damaged her home. Her tears lately are not as much because of what she lost, but because of what she’s been given.
Her new home, built by Samaritan’s Purse, was dedicated Friday.
“I never dreamed something like this would happen to me,” Mayfield said of receiving the home, which is hers, free and clear. “God has been so good; I’m so thankful. He’s been so merciful.”
Mayfield’s home was the first completed in Faulkner County by the international Christian relief organization’s Arkansas Rebuild Project.
Andy Beauchamp of North Carolina, who is employed by Samaritan’s Purse, is the project manager.
“We came in March,” he said. “The original scope of work was to do 12 [new] homes, eight remodels and 20 storm shelters. To date, we have got nine homes officially approved, 17 storm shelters and four remodels.”
He said Mayfield’s home was one of the first to be approved and the first to be dedicated.
“The criteria is they have to be landowners at the time of the storm, have to make under $45,000 a year and be underinsured or have no insurance at all. This has to be their only home,” he said.
Beauchamp, pronounced “Beacham,” said 20 to 22 different volunteers arrive each week in Faulkner County to help. “We’re fully funded by donors,” he said.
Mayfield, 69, said that when the tornado tore through Faulkner County on April 27, 2014, she was in Florida at her niece’s funeral. Friends started calling her to tell her that her home was hit.
“I never dreamed that a tornado that major would come through Mayflower,” Mayfield said. The EF4-rated tornado killed 16 people in central Arkansas, including three in Mayflower, and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.
She and her husband, the late Walter Mayfield, moved from Florida to Greenbrier in 1969 and to Mayflower in 1985. They rented their home on Pine Tree Loop near Lake Conway before buying it, and later they bought a lot next door, which had a house on it. That house was in disrepair, so they used it for storage, she said.
Mayfield said her husband died suddenly of a heart attack Jan. 29, 2012. They were married 45 years, “and we went everywhere together,” she said. Mayfield said she was still in mourning when the tornado hit the home they’d shared. “The Lord displaced me to spare me the emotional trauma,” she said.
The storm damaged the home’s carport, and a limb went through the roof of her home, but she was able to salvage all of her clothes, most of her furniture and “a few” of her photos and other belongings.
Mayfield said many of her neighbors lost everything, including their vehicles.
“The day I came on this street, I went to them and comforted them,” she said. “Their eyes were just vacant.”
Mayfield said she had bought a camper in 2013, even though her friends and family thought she was crazy. She said she felt God was leading her to buy it.
“The Lord and I had conversations about that,” she said, laughing. “I don’t even have a vehicle to pull it.” She keeps the camper in Conway.
“All the way home [from Florida], I thanked God that he had provided that. I could come home and lay my head on my pillow on my bed,” she said.
Because she had the camper, Mayfield said, she gave her neighbors the furniture she’d salvaged from her own home.
Mayfield said she didn’t know what she was going to do next. She didn’t want to live in the camper forever, and she considered moving back to Florida.
“We had no house insurance,” she said, because of the age of her home.
A representative of Samaritan’s Purse called Mayfield and asked what her plans were, and she told him she couldn’t afford to rebuild. She was accepted for a new home.
“I could not believe it,” she said, starting to cry as she sat in her living room. “Even today, it’s such a miracle in my life worked through Samaritan’s Purse.”
Volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse tore down her tornado-ravaged home, as well as the house on the lot next door, which is where her new two-bedroom, one-bath home was built. It has forest-green siding and a porch with a swing.
She gave a tour of the home that she shares with her dog, Sugar, a companion she bought after her husband died. Her bathroom doubles as a safe room, built to withstand an EF4-rated tornado, she said.
Mayfield said she used what little money she had saved to buy furniture for her home, and relatives from Florida bought her a television and installed it the weekend her home was dedicated. Displayed on the shelves of her entertainment center are framed photos of Bible verses volunteers wrote on the slab and inside the walls of the home. Over the front door, now covered with siding, is the verse from Psalm 66:5: “Come and see what God has done. He is awesome in his deed toward the child of men.”
Mayfield said she and her husband were active members of Mayflower First Baptist Church, but after he died it was too hard for her to go back to church. She said she told the Rev. David Fox that she had to take a sabbatical because the memories of her late husband were too strong.
“I see him everywhere, in the choir, walking down the hall,” she said. Mayfield said she is still close friends with Fox, but she attends Central Baptist Church in Conway.
Volunteers and staff of Samaritan’s Purse stay at Vilonia’s First Baptist Church, and Mayfield said she shares meals with them twice a week at the church.
A small plaque on Mayfield’s front door has the Bible verse Matthew 7:24 engraved on it: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” In smaller type, it says: “This house was built for the glory of God by the willing hands and gracious gifts of Samaritan’s Purse supporters.”
“The staff has just been so supportive, and they have loved me through these tough days,” Mayfield said. “I hate to see them leave in March. I just feel like I’m part of the family of Samaritan’s Purse. Because of my house, I will always be part of Samaritan’s Purse because this is my life now in this house,” she said. “My husband would love this house, and I know he knows that I have it, and he is thrilled.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.