For 325 college students, they are working with Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) efforts in New York. They will be spending their winter break making homes livable again for residents spending Christmas in homes damaged by superstorm Sandy.

There will be least 27 groups of students which will gut homes, haul debris, and minister while living in a tent village at Staten Island's Zion Lutheran Church.

Patricia Lally, a student from Baptist College of Florida in Graceville, was part of an early-arriving group of students who built living quarters for subsequent groups and began mud-out efforts with Alabama disaster relief volunteers. "I love helping people," Lally says, "and telling them about Jesus."

This group of students represents a new level of student involvement in SBDR efforts. "College students have a strong desire to be involved in these types of opportunities," says Fritz Wilson, NAMB's SBDR executive director. "And it's a way for us to invest in students and get them interested in disaster relief for the rest of their lives."

The college students are providing a much-needed crew of volunteers during the holidays. With service opportunities lasting a week, students will fill a need left by traditional Disaster Relief volunteers who have spent more than a month in the area. The students will be helping SBDR until January 22.

"Many of our regular volunteers who've been responding for over a month simply have used up a lot of their [vacation] time," Wilson explains. "The college students are willing to say, 'I can carve out this week' during their winter breaks and still spend the holidays with their families."

Many of the groups will receive training before or even during their journeys to the area. On-site they will be guided by experienced SBDR mud-out leaders.

The needs that resulted from Sandy continues to grow. Residents are beginning to recover their belongings and resume their lives in the midst of still-visible devastation.

"What the college students are doing in this case is providing us with a big presence in an area where, quite honestly, we haven't historically had a lot of Southern Baptist work," Wilson says.

Since Sandy hit, SBDR volunteers have served 1.75 million meals, cleaned debris from nearly 900 homes, and made over 4,300 ministry contacts. The volunteers have also shared the Gospel with over 775 people, resulting in more than 80 professions of faith.

"The response of these student volunteers to the Northeast not only is building our ability to respond to disaster, but it's also building in these younger volunteers a greater understanding of mission work in North America," affirms NAMB President Kevin Ezell.

Pray for the students traveling to volunteer in New York. Pray for many opportunities to share the Gospel. Ask God to give the volunteers strength and endurance as they continue to clean up after superstorm Sandy.

"The emotional impact will be the first thing," says Mark Lewis, the Director of Evangelical Free Church of America's TouchGlobal. "Anytime people go through a traumatic event, and those events kinda replicate that, [it] brings back the memory of the initial trauma."

Forecasters are warning that a significant winter storm is still on track to hit the East Coast midweek. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), the storm could produce hurricane-force winds of up to 55 mph, with the strongest gusts right along the coast. Forecasters also predict that temperatures could drop into the 20s.

"These are really difficult times," Lewis says. "It is cold; it is damp. With the holiday season coming up, it's just a difficult time of year to be facing loss of all your possessions."

Superstorm Sandy struck the East Coast with a vengeance last week, leaving some 900,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey without power, along with almost 700,000 in New York City, its northern suburbs, and Long Island. TouchGlobal says the current situation varies for EFCA churches and their communities, ranging from power outages to entire homes washed into the ocean.

"We are in a pseudo war zone," said Pastor Keith Miraldi of Salem EFC in Staten Island, NY. Three-quarters of the island is without power, and this church's congregates are suffering from homes washed into the ocean, massive flooding, and over 10,000 downed trees.

"I don't think the media is over-hyping the situation," said Miraldi. "We actually feel it is way worse than what you see on TV."

Right now, Sandy survivors are struggling to get by. How will they endure the nor'easter's snow, ice, rain and wind?

"There's no one that's out on the street at this point, to our knowledge anyway," explains Lewis. "The agencies, authorities and city have done a great job of meeting those immediate food, clothing, and temporary shelter needs, but we do see that the people will be inhibited from getting access to the properties."

TouchGlobal works with local churches to provide crisis recovery, outreach, and evangelism.

"We just find being available, providing great opportunities for access ministry and being in the lives of people, really provides that missional opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of people for that eternal life transformation," he says.

Lewis shared a recent example of TouchGlobal teams acting as the hands and feet of Christ. The Hoboken Evangelical Free Church in New Jersey was flooded and endured a variety of other storm damages. Teams did initial clean-up efforts at the church, but they didn't stop there. Lewis says they also threw a block party for the community.

"There were hundreds of people that came out around the neighborhood. Food was delivered to people who hadn't been out, hadn't had a hot meal in 4 or 5 days," says Lewis. "There were so many people that were out in the community, [and] there were lots of good conversations."

He adds, "There really is a seed-planting moment right now. Crisis provides a unique opportunity where people ask lots of questions about life, eternity, 'why' questions. They ponder things that normally they don't in the busyness of life."

Ask God to protect Sandy survivors as they brace for another storm. Pray that unbelievers would come to know Christ through the storms and through the compassion of ministries like TouchGlobal. Pray that God would be made known in a very powerful way.

The EFCA has established a hurricane response fund, and Lewis says funding is their greatest need right now. Volunteers are needed to assist with relief efforts, and there's also a need for supplies.

"In the very short-term, we're trying to mobilize blankets and winter coats for Salem Church on Staten Island," said Lewis. "We're trying to accomplish that actually by Thursday or Friday so that those supplies would be able to get distributed this weekend as temperatures continue to drop."

Click here to see how you can support EFCA's response to Hurricane Sandy.