Thursday, September 22, 2005
Extending This Mission
This operation has been soooooo successful. God has graced us with willing volunteers, effective leaders, and pulled together incomprehensible logistics to allow us to serve. He has broken down the walls men use to differentiate their faith in the body to allow people from 12 or more different churches to work shoulder to shoulder. Current participants are as far afield as Dayton, Canton, and Huntington, West Virginia. Our mission has reached so many people in the current disaster zone through God's grace.
As we met at lunch today to discuss the stories, the massive destruction, and the failure of our government and well funded professional relief charities to meet the need it was obvious that this effort cannot just end after 4 weeks of success. It is also obvious that, without major devine intervention, there will be an extended disaster zone after hurricane Rita passes the coast this weekend. There have been many references to Mathew 9:36-38 describing our situation as members of the body of Christ right now.
Our work teams have been half of the volunteer population working with Tammany Oaks to rebuild not just their community of Mandeville, but as far afield as Gulf Port. They have a work board, they call the Get R Done board, with voluminous tasks that need completed by teams. Single jobs may be as extensive as removing all carpeting, furniture, drywall, and insullation from a flooded house. They find new areas who have seen NO assistance every day.
Included in our meeting was Mark Bass of Alkire Road Church of Christ in Grove City in the southern Columbus suburbs. They have a mission providing supplies and some cleanup labor to Van Cleave Mississippi. They will also be sending equipment and tradespeople to help rebuild houses. As our two efforts are the only ones we know of ongoing from the area, we will be joining forces and providing mutual support.
The stricken people in Louisiana and Mississippi need many more of us to come and help. Each week we send larger teams and must keep that going rather than die off. To do so, we need more congregations to join the effort. The body of Christ in the central Ohio region is absolutely massive. We have tremendious monitary, leadership, and volunteer resources to offer this effort. In order to be most effective, we must band together through reliable channels and programs.
The two programs we have running have proven to be reliable, even though they only began a few weeks ago. These operations can direct much more support than they have to help many more people much faster if we can provide them the most lacking resource, people.
As we met at lunch today to discuss the stories, the massive destruction, and the failure of our government and well funded professional relief charities to meet the need it was obvious that this effort cannot just end after 4 weeks of success. It is also obvious that, without major devine intervention, there will be an extended disaster zone after hurricane Rita passes the coast this weekend. There have been many references to Mathew 9:36-38 describing our situation as members of the body of Christ right now.
Our work teams have been half of the volunteer population working with Tammany Oaks to rebuild not just their community of Mandeville, but as far afield as Gulf Port. They have a work board, they call the Get R Done board, with voluminous tasks that need completed by teams. Single jobs may be as extensive as removing all carpeting, furniture, drywall, and insullation from a flooded house. They find new areas who have seen NO assistance every day.
We cannot leave them stranded now and just go back to
our lives when so many are hurt and broken there.
our lives when so many are hurt and broken there.
Included in our meeting was Mark Bass of Alkire Road Church of Christ in Grove City in the southern Columbus suburbs. They have a mission providing supplies and some cleanup labor to Van Cleave Mississippi. They will also be sending equipment and tradespeople to help rebuild houses. As our two efforts are the only ones we know of ongoing from the area, we will be joining forces and providing mutual support.
The stricken people in Louisiana and Mississippi need many more of us to come and help. Each week we send larger teams and must keep that going rather than die off. To do so, we need more congregations to join the effort. The body of Christ in the central Ohio region is absolutely massive. We have tremendious monitary, leadership, and volunteer resources to offer this effort. In order to be most effective, we must band together through reliable channels and programs.
The two programs we have running have proven to be reliable, even though they only began a few weeks ago. These operations can direct much more support than they have to help many more people much faster if we can provide them the most lacking resource, people.
- People to fill positions in leadership at home sharing duties coordinating the effort.
- People to fill team leadership positions in the field.
- People to volunteer to perform the work onsite.
- People and trucks to transport goods we collect to be distributed.
- Many more people in supporting roles at home.
- Most of all, people to spend a week to work with the victims of this disaster to rebuild their lives.
# posted by John McGuire @ 8:31 PM 
