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Disaster Response
A community in Upcountry Maui that endured a wildfire at the same time as Lahaina is receiving a helping hand from concerned Presbyterians who are answering the call to donate to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA).
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is working with the Presbytery of the Pacific following this week’s fires that killed at least 55 people in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Earlier this week fires also burned brush on the Big Island of Hawaii, but those fires have been largely controlled.
Ellen Smith, World Mission’s regional liaison for Central and Eastern Europe, led a packed and thought-provoking mini-course last week during Synod School on the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s mission in Ukraine.
Through a collaboration between Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and 1001 New Worshiping Communities, church planters and spiritual leaders visited Puerto Rico in June to learn about ongoing efforts to rebuild after hurricane disasters. 1001 New Worshiping Communities leaders recognized many commonalities with pastors in Puerto Rico, including the necessity of bivocational calls and a need for community engagement and the work of healing and relief.
“How do we do justice to the people we serve and have empathy with them?”
Last week, Michelle Muñiz posed this question to an assembly of 100 leaders of disaster relief organizations in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the Puerto Rican affiliate chapter of National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (PRVOAD) Conference and Assembly.
Marcdaline Abelard was in her home in the mountains above Leogane on Saturday, June 3, when her husband Claudy left to go search for the family goat. Rain was pouring and the wind had picked up.
While she waited, she tried to calm her baby who is only a few months old. Her 2-year-old and 4-year-old were frightened by the weather.
The heavy rains caused flash flooding that ripped through the mountain village.
Claudy never returned.
The congregation and leadership of a Presbyterian church that was set on fire earlier this week in Douglas, Arizona, is determined not to give up despite major damage to the building.
It began, as so much seems to begin these days, with an email.
“The mission committee of Mid Kentucky Presbytery is ready to again collect Hygiene Kits for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance,” wrote Ruth Welch, coordinator of the project for the presbytery. “We hope the Presbyterian Center will join in collecting, sorting, and assembling these kits.”
Following yet another weekend marred by deadly gun violence in Louisville, Mid-Kentucky Presbytery opened its May 22 stated meeting at Briargate Presbyterian Church with a screening and small-group discussion in response to “Trigger: The Ripple Effect of Gun Violence,” a documentary directed by David Barnhart as part of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance’s Story Productions.
Members of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) National Response Team took a few hours out of their recent annual meeting to hear from representatives of two Colorado presbyteries that the team has served over the past few decades.
