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

Calming The Storm: The Life of a Flood/Disaster Bucket

Calming The Storm: The Life of a Flood/Disaster Bucket: Part of the Disaster Care Ministry at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church is our Bucket Brigade. This year alone, we have already distrib...

The Life of a Flood/Disaster Bucket

Part of the Disaster Care Ministry at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church is our Bucket Brigade. This year alone, we have already distributed over 1000 Disaster Buckets and we have another 200 ready for delivery. I often get ask what a Disaster or Flood Bucket is and how our program works.

Flood Bucket with its contents

A Disaster/ Flood Bucket is a 5-gallon bucket containing cleaning supplies. Each bucket contains a roll of paper towels, a rag or cloth, a bottle of glass cleaner, a bottle of liquid cleaner (like Spic & Span), a powder cleaner (like Comet), a gallon of bleach, a scrub brush, two pairs of rubber gloves, 2 sponges and devotional material. We also send a Bible with each Bucket.

Picking up empty buckets at our local Home Depot

Although we purchase most of our bucket supplies, some items are donated.Our funds for purchasing supplies come from our fund-raisers, donations from individuals and churches, and grants like the one we currently have from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Assembling Flood Buckets

We order most of our supplies on-line from Dollar Tree. They are delivered to the local store where we pick them up. We try to get our buckets donated, but when we have to buy them, Home Depot gives us a good discount. After we have picked p our supplies we schedule a work day to assemble the buckets. We store the buckets in the same room we assemble them in.

Loading the Trailer

The Buckets are stored until they are needed. When we get a request, we load the buckets into our trailer.

Unloading Buckets at Bethel Lutheran in Bryan, TX.

Working through the local Lutheran Church, we deliver the buckets to the area affected by the disaster. When possible we help deliver the buckets to the victims.

Delivering buckets to McAllen Texas to be sent to Southern Mexico.

We always try to work through the local church or other Lutheran organization.Our ministry is based on a ministry of presence so it is important that we make that personal contact, listen to the victims and ask to share a prayer with them.

Annual fund-raising dinner.

 Those who deliver the buckets are always ready to share the hope they have in Christ Jesus. Without that, we are just another social ministry.

Passing out buckets at the Arlington Tornado recovery Center

The LCC Comfort Dogs Helping us deliver buckets

Feeding Disaster Victims in Bryan, TX

Saturday and Sunday A few members from the Disaster Care Ministry joined up with the folks from The Holy Cow Smokers from Lamb of God in Flower Mound and Bethel Lutheran in Bryan to feed victims of the tornado and floods that hit Bryan Texas on May 28.

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We fed pulled pork sandwiches for lunch on Saturday, Sliced Brisket for dinner, and chopped brisket sandwiches for lunch on Sunday. 921 meals were served in all.

Volunteers packed the meals and took them out and distributed them in the areas that were impacted by the storms. We also delivered meals to the local fire stations that have really been taxed in the aftermath of the storms.

In Addition to meals, the workers took flood buckets (provided by the Disaster Care Ministry), Kitchen Kits (provided by Tree of Life in Garland) and Comfort Kits (provided by the Lamb of God LWML). Many of the items distributed were made possible through grants provided by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

We met many great people. Ross Johnson, Pam Neilsen and Peter Slayton came from Synod to help, and Steve Misch came from the Texas Distict to assist us.

A  lot of people were touched by the weekend effort and we even had a man who was Baptized on Sunday. Thank you to all the great volunteers that made this all happen.

Disaster Buckets to Bryan, TX

On Thursday, May 25 heavy storms moved through the Brazos Valley dumping torrential rain and spawn tornadoes. One tornado struck in Bryan Texas damaging 153 homes. In addition to the tornado flooding was experienced all around the city.

On Saturday, May 27 I received a request to take buckets to Bethel Lutheran Church in Bryan, TX.  We had just received supplies for our buckets, so I contacted our team to come to the church at 1:00 PM to assemble buckets. 

On Monday, we met again at 10:00 AM to Load the Trailer.

After Loading the trailer, we took 3 pickups and went to Home Depot to pick up our order of 480 empty buckets and lids that had just arrived.

We delivered 200 buckets to BethelLutheran in Bryan on Tuesday. Included in the load was the 1000 bucket we delivered in 2016. This is a major milestone for the Disaster Care Ministry. We have never delivered 1000 buckets in one year before. We could not deliver this many buckets without the assistance of LCMS Disaster Response and the Grants we receive from LCMS Domestic Development.

A fringe benefit for me was that I got to have lunch with my son, Matthew. Mathew is attending Texas A&M University. 

This is the seventh disaster we have responded to this year.With God's grace, we will be able to continue this work.

Tornado Work Day In Lindale, TX.

SaturdayMay 21 we worked with the folks from the Lindale area to put on a work day to help the victims of the tornadoes that hit the area onApril 29. Over 300 volunteers showed up for the work day including 67 Lutherans from 7 LCMS Churches.

Greg Bourbon, with The Disaster Care Ministry at Beautiful Savior LCMS, Gives the Safety Briefing

David Ricks with the Disaster Care Ministry of Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church made opening remarks and gave an opening devotion and prayer. Greg Bourbon, also with Disaster Care Ministry gave a safety briefing and Kimberly Eligass with the Lindale Chamber of Commerce passed out assignments.

Workers removed trees and assisted homeowners in Lindale, Hawkins and Holly Lake.  We worked on 33 homes.

The Holy Cow Smokers from Lamb of God Lutheran Church in Flower Mound provided a BBQ lunch for Volunteers and residents. 1000 meals were served. Residents who were not impacted by the tornado were ask to make a donation to the Lindale recovery fund.

The Churches that assisted in the workday were Beautiful Savior - Arlington, Peace-Hearst, Trinity - Tyler, Trinity - Hawkins/ Holy Lake, Tree of Life - Garland, St Paul's - Ft Worth, and The Summit Aledo.

We Past out 33 Kitchen Kits provided by Tree of Life and 50 Comfort Kits provided by Lamb of God's LWML.

LCMS Volunteer Day for December 2015 Tornadoes

January 23 Tornado Work Day Video

Here is a video put together by Steve Misch highlighting some of the work day. You can view a higher quality version of the video at https://vimeo.com/153043951

January 23 Tornado Clean Up Day

It was a brisk January morning as 345 Lutherans descended on Tree of Life Lutheran Church in Garland, Texas. They were there to help residents of Garland, Rowlett, and Sunnyvale as they cleaned up from the EF 4 tornado that struck the area one day after Christmas.

A group of about 100 volunteers headed out to help clean up an RV Park near the Church.Debris was scattered all over the place.LERT Certified Chain Saw crews cut and stacked wood from downed trees while other workers cleaned debris from pulverized RVs and stacked it near the road.

Other crews went out into the neighborhoods to assist residents with the cleanup. Some aided residents in moving unsalvageable belongings from their house and stacking them on the curb. Others sort piles of debris for homeowners so that the city would pick it up. Chain Saw teams helped homeowners cut up downed trees and tree limbs and stacked them at the curb.

Two Large teams also tor down badly damaged houses and removed the debris from he slab.

The Lutheran Church Charities Comfort Dogs joined other workers in walking the neighborhoods giving out recovery binders and gift cards to people in need. A team of Girlscouts aided in putting together gift card packets, which included a devotional book and information on Tree of Life and assembling recovery notebooks, that contained information on grants, and a place to store important paperwork partaining to the storm.

The Holy Cow Smokers provided 1800 Lunches and 400 dinners for  residents and all the volunteers working in the area.

In addition to coordinating the work day, The Disaster Care Ministry at Beautiful Savior in Arlington provided $5000of disaster buckets and $1000 worth of tools and supplies. 

Upbring Donated $1000 worth of gift cards to be distributed, Both Upbring and the Texas District of the LCMS donated $500 in funds for supplies and tools. 

21 churches participated in the work day. It was a great clean up day. All our work orders were completed.Tree of Life was a fantastic Host for the event