Saturday, September 13, 2008

This is the next big one

Our response now seems inevitable after two large storms have rolled over an area covering more than half the gulf coast in a week.
This is a telling article about the last major hurricane to hit Galveston and Houston 100 years ago.

Unfortunately, Ike, though a category 2, is expected to be producing a maximum storm surge, at this hour, of 20-25 feet; up to 11 feet higher than that 1900 storm which destroyed everything on Galveston Island. Add to that wave heights of 25-50 feet. All this due to the fact that the storm is over 900 miles wide and carries tropical storm strength winds across a 550 mile swath including much of Louisiana still recovering from Rita and Gustav. Estimates indicate, only 60% of Galveston residents left the island. Most of Houston was not evacuated to avoid the deaths and other problems experienced in the evacuation attempt from hurricane Rita 3 years ago.

As the storm has come ashore, officials are telling the press this is their worst case scenario.

Please be in prayer today for those who have lost their lives last night, those who will be out first to begin the relief response and rescue, and our part. We will need volunteers to collect water, lead teams, be hands and feet in the disaster zone, and help organize all our efforts. We need contacts in the area to find a partner to work with. We'll need the power of the Spirit to sustain us and use us to His will.

Servants Unite!
John McGuire

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Help for Haiti

Servants Unite, small as we are, is not an international relief organization. However, as we've been blessed with weekening storms this season, Haiti has been beaten by every one of them. A humanitarian crisis is looming.

Lifeline Christian Mission has a large mission with diverse services in Grand Goave Haiti and their US operation is based right here in Westerville, Ohio.

They are receiving 5 times the usual number of people seeking food and clean water. Unfortunately, they have had to turn people away.

To help alleviate the need, they hope to pack a container this weekend with the supplies in their warehouse to ship out next week. Volunteers may be needed in Westerville when the container arrives. I will let you know when it is there.

They are also asking for additional donations to ship as many containers as they can fill.

My recommendations is if you feel called to help organize donations for this special need they are filling, help organize your church, school group (IB kids :-), service organization, work, whatever to gather only the requested supplies at your meeting place. We can then get the supplies to Lifeline in bulk rather than several hundred people dropping off a case of water each.

Servants Unite will organize pickup of these supplies from your location and deliver them to Lifeline if you need assistance with that part of it.

If you wish to work with Lifeline directly, go for it. The contact at the office who will be handling supplies is Dana Krahel, Volunteer Coordinator. They are at 184 Olde County Line Road, Westerville, Ohio 43081. Phone: 614-794-0108.

Here's the plea letter we received this week:
We ARE having a Non Perishable Food Drive in Ohio and one in Indiana and hope to get an entire container of food ready to ship in about 1 month (we already have some food on the way now to Haiti for a stop-gap measure and we’ll buy what we have to buy, Lord willing!):
  • Canned and foil packaged meats and meals
  • Dried beans, peas
  • Rice
  • Pastas of all types
  • Canned vegetables
  • Soups
  • Canned meals such as Spaghetti-O’s, etc.
  • Bottle Water
  • Peanut butter
When making a choice the lighter the weight the more we can get on the container

At this time we are NOT requesting clothing or shoes; only food.

We have put out a plea for funds but are also preparing a flyer to be sent to our churches asking for these items. We will receive them and send them on regular schedule containers too, as long as they keep coming in. We ship at a minimum once a quarter from our warehouse.

Thank you again and pray with us that in all of this loss that people will turn to Christ and know that He is the answer!

God bless you and tell everyone at Westerville “thank you”!
Bob and Gretchen

Ike Ike go away!

Prayer, petitioning for the devolution of Gustav... The storm weekend to a category 2 rather than growing to a category4. Katrina, if you'll remember was roaring into New Orleans as a strong category5, but deteriorated to a category 3 by landfall. Rita had the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded while in the gulf, but deteriorated, against predictions, before making landfall and missed the metropolis of Houston/Galveston, also against predictions.

Ike is the last storm on our scopes of this menacing train of storms this past month. It is projected to make landfall near Houston tomorrow night. The trend in course predictions from the National Weather Service is moving it closer to that highly vulnerable area overnight.

Responding to Houston, like we did New Orleans, is more difficult because of the added distance. Nonetheless, if called, we will go.

Let's do our best to avoid that necessity, though with prayer and petition to our Lord to quiet the storm as he has the others. As bad as they have been, we know this one can be even more devestating to more than 2 million people living there.

John McGuire

Post Gustav Update from Chalmette

Here's an update from Aaron at The Gathering who we've stayed and worked with for several trips during the past year.


greetings,
if anyone emailed over the weeked, we had a small snafu with our website and server, so i may have not received what you sent this way. same with shauna.

anyhow, we received power on friday, sept 5th- most people's refrigerators were a bit of a mess. neighbors across the street lost lots of shingles--enough that the paper and vents were gone, too leaving exposed wood and attic-their drywall ceilings fell into the bedrooms! what a mess.

shauna returned friday evening and our whole team has jumped in:
-patching shingles -tarping roofs -standing fences back up...

..mowing lawn for a national guardsmen who had long hours on duty in new orleans during the evacuation -cooking food and passing it out "down the road" (several people still w/out power on the far east end of our parish sunday and monday)

tomorrow we'll go help remove the floor at dennis' house- he's a good friend who was very close to moving into his house last week (moving in for first time since katrina). we were going to go over and do some touch up painting, but his front door blew in during Gustav and his new flooring is ruined.

from some of these comments notice the heartache that some people might have with some old Katrina emotions returning. our task is clear- serve and love like Jesus, pointing at Him and reminding people over and again that He is hope and love.

thanks for asking about things and for sending the emails our way. a few of you said you'd been meaning to call me anyway- ha, my how disasters bring us together. and for that, see attached picture about how we all find strength to lean on-finding anything and everything to make a fence stand! and the first pic is our group driving back from the retreat.

please pray that our work and daily endeavors keeps advancing the Kingdom rather than our own agenda.

our AC went out in the car- now we have those decisions to make. and next week we plan to begin a Financial Peace group meeting at a local school. hopefully another way of meeting people and helping families. thanks!

aaron johnson
the gathering
chalmette, LA
504 610 7779