Second Tornado Clean Up Day in Canton,TX

As we set out for a second work day after the Van Zandt County tornadoes, the sky was threatening and the weatherman was predicting a 75% chance of rain. The Volunteer  Reception Center was expecting between 500 and 600 volunteers to show up to assist residents affected by the tornadoes. Most of them did not show up.

119 Lutherans from 14 churches did show up and went to work. We completed 8 work orders. the work was varied from assisting people to pack and remove belongings from uninhabitable homes, to cutting down dangerous trees, to clearing debris. One homeowner had about 20 yards of large downed trees that had to be removed from his drive so he could access his property.

The Holy Cow Smokers joined us and fed 1000 Texas BBQ meals to tornado victims and volunteers. They brought 30 folks back on Sunday and distributed another 600 meals.

It was a great day of work as we helped residents, Listened to their stories and shared our faith.  The rain never came.

Thank you to everyone who worked to make this day possible.

Van Zandt County Tornado Work Day

On April 29 the seven tornados touch down in Henderson, Van Zandt, and Raines counties in East Texas leaving destruction and 4 deaths in their paths. On Saturday, May 6th, 54 people from twelve  Lutheran Churches came together in the first of two scheduled work days.

Picture by Lou Jander

We work at 5 different locations. We did everything from chainsaw work and debris, to helping survivors sort their belongings out of the rubble

We will be having another workday on May 20 starting at 8:30 AM. if you would like to join use or find out more click here.

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Four Disaster Care Volunteers Recieve The President's Volunteer Service Award

The President's Volunteer Service Award is an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and is administered by Points of Light Foundation. Through a shared mission of inspiring more to answer the call to service, the President's Volunteer Service Award celebrates the impact we can all make in bettering our communities and our world.

The President's Volunteer award is a tremendous honor and recognizes those who have set themselves apart from their peers in their willingness to volunteer and serve their community and Nation.

The Disaster Care Ministry is proud to share that four of our members were selected to receive this award for the 2016 year for their efforts in the service of those impacted by Disasters. 

David Ricks, Dan Cowan, Dianna Lee and Greg Bourbon were presented with their medals, a certificate, and a letter from the President of the United States on January 8, 2017. The Awards were presented at by Rev. Glenn Merrit who was the first Director of LCMS Disaster Response. The Disaster Care Ministry hosted a reception to celebrate the four winners, The assembly of 1500 Flood Buckets in 2016, The delivery of 5000 Flood Buckets since the Bucket Brigade began in 2008, and the 30th Disaster responded to since 2000.

Operation Christmas Hope is Big Success

On August 16, 2016, prolonged rainfall in the southern part of Louisiana resulted in catastrophic flooding. In September the Disaster Care Ministry worked with Lutheran Churches in North Texas to put together a work weekend and feeding event. On the way home, we discussed how there were so many children who had lost everything and were not going to have much of a Christmas. From that conversation, Operation Christmas Hope was born.

We decide we wanted to provide children in Baton Rouge with the message of Christ birth by giving them a copy of Paul L. Maier's "The Very First Christmas" accompanied by a shoebox gift.

LCMS Disaster response agreed to supply the books if we would come up with the shoe box gifts. The Disaster Care Ministry purchase gifts and plastic boxes to assemble 700 gifts. 

Members From  Beautiful Savior Lutheran Arlington TX, Trinity Hawkins Lutheran TX, and Lamb of God Lutheran Flower Mound, TX. donated 252 gifts for a total of 952 presents.

On December 10 we loaded up the 952 presents and 1000 books.

On December 12 we delivered the trailer load of goodies to Camp Restore Baton Rouge, LA.

Trinity Lutheran Baton Rouge and Camp Restore Distributed the presents and books the week before Christmas.

Special Thanks to Trinty Lutheran Baton Rouge, Camp Restore, LCMS Disaster Response, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hawkins, and Lamb of God Lutheran Church, Flower Mound for their help.

Operation Christmas Hope

In August, the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana suffered the worst flooding to occur since Hurricane Katrina. According to the Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce, 110,000 households were significantly affected by the flooding. While the Disaster Care Ministry was working in the Baton Rouge area it became apparent that a large number of children were impacted. The prospect these children having a good Christmas is low.

The Disaster Care Ministry at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church would like to ask you to join us in Operation Christmas Hope. Through Operation Christmas Hope our goals is to bring the hope we have in Christ to 1000 children in the Baton Rouge area.

Our plan is to provide each child with a hardback copy of Paul L. Maier’s “The Very First Christmas” and a shoe box gift. We are asking your church or organization to consider assisting us by providing some shoe box gifts. Each shoe box should contain a gift or gifts valued at between $10 and $15. The gift should be wrapped and a tag with gender (Boy or Girl) and age group (preschool –Kindergarten, 1^st – 3^rd, and 4^th - 6^th) should be placed on the top of the box. Gifts need to be delivered to Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church, 5851 New York Ave., Arlington, TX 76018 by December 4^th.You can e-mail David Ricks. (e-mail disastercare@bslc.net )

Gift Suggestions

Toys: Include items that children will immediately embrace such as toy cars, yo-yos, jump ropes, balls, Toys that light up and make noise (with extra batteries), etc.

School Supplies: pens, pencils and sharpeners, markers, notebooks, paper, solar calculators, coloring and picture books, etc.

Accessories: T-shirts, socks, hats, sunglasses, hair clips, jewelry, watches, flashlights (with extra batteries), etc.

Do not include food, breakable items, or items that might melt.

   Sincerely,

  David Ricks

   Disaster Care Ministry/BSLC

Disastercare@bslc.net

Flood Clean Up in Louisiana

Last week a group of Texans from Beautiful Savior Lutheran Arlington, Trinity Lutheran Tyler, The Summit Lutheran Aledo and The Holy Cow Smokers from Lamb of God Lutheran Flower Mound  Traveled to Baton Rouge, LA to assist with Flood Recovery.

The Holy Cow Smokers stayed at Trinity Lutheran Church in Baton Rouge. This was their base of operations as they fed over 6000 meals to the community. The Rest of us stayed bout 5 miles down the road on property owned by Trinity Lutheran that has become Camp Restore Baton Rouge.

During our stay, we did a number of tasks to help prepare Camp Restore for full operation. On the evening we arrived we put covers on all the mattresses covers on all the bunk beds in the Building  and move bunk beds around to optimize the setup . One team worked to "demolish nature." We removed under trees and underbrush from an area where the camp wanted to park a semi-trailer from Orphan Grain Train. One team worked to tape and bed sheetrock in a room that was being finished out for addition bunk space.

While some teams stayed behind to help put the camp in order, The Majority were out in the community helping victims of the storm put their lives back together. Most of the work was gutting houses. We removed wet sheetrock and insulation, tore down wet ceilings.cleaned out flooded storage barns, and whatever else we could for the homeowners.

We did a lot of great work this weekend, but the amount of work still left to be done is overwhelming. If you would like to volunteer you can contact CampRestore at 504-242-2636.  

Buckets To Baton Rouge

On August 16 prolonged rainfall in the southern part of Louisiana resulted in catastrophic flooding that submerged thousands of homes. Louisiana's governor, John Bel Edwards, called the disaster a historic, unprecedented flooding event. Rainfall Exceeded 20 inches in many parishes.

On August 20 the members of the Disaster Care Ministry at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church loaded up our trailer with 288 Flood Buckets, 50 Quilts, 150 Bath Towels, 150 Wash Cloths , 75 Hand Towels and 288 Bibles.

Loading Buckets in the rain - photo by David Ricks

On August 22 David Ricks and Dan Cowan Headed to Trinity Lutheran in Baton Rouge, LA

Unloading Buckets- Photo by Dan Cowan

We spent some a brief time talking with volunteers and relief staff.

After unloading the trailer. We returned home.  round trip and unloading took 20 hours.

Our relief effort could not have happened without the support of our volunteers and donors. A  grant from LCMS Disaster Grants paid for many of the supplies in the buckets