HURRICANE HARVEY RESPONSE UPDATE

September 5, 2017

People in disarray, no homes, no possessions, and for some it feels as if there is no hope.  The catastrophic effects of Hurricane Harvey left Texas to undergo the largest recovery-housing missions that the nation has ever seen according to FEMA. This recovery process will be long and frustrating and will take years of work. Fortunately for the thousands of displaced survivors, there are helpers to ease the hardships of their loss. SBDR (Southern Baptist Disaster Relief) and SEND Relief (NAMB compassion ministry) will be ministering together to help the people of Texas. This response will be long-term; there will be work to do for one to two years.

Texas Baptist Men and Southern Baptist Convention of Texas have coordinated much of the immediate response with help from NAMB DR. They have 12 large mobile kitchens set up and are serving thousands of meals partnering with the American Red Cross. More mobile kitchens are on standby waiting for water to recede or food supplies.

What are several ways you can help in this time of need?

Pray. Please pray for the survivors, first responders and all volunteers helping in this historic disaster.

Give offering to help survivors and the SBDR to buy resources (food, cleaning supplies, mold killer, etc.) needed to help survivors. Donations of goods are great if necessary and are specific to what the disaster area is asking. However for us in Hawaii, the cost to ship those products are super expensive. That shipping cost will be better used for the SBDR teams to purchase locally.

Here are some ways to give offerings:

Churches collect the offering and send one check to HPBC, and we will send directly to NAMB Disaster Relief with all of our churches offerings.

Memo your checks with “Hurricane Harvey” for NAMB DR Survivor Support

Memo your check with “Harvey Travel” if you would like to help SBDR teams with air travel to help survivors.

Individuals can give online directly to https://www.namb.net for SEND Relief NAMB DR/Harvey

http://sbtexas.com for Southern Baptist Texas Convention DR/Harvey.

http://texasbaptistmen.org/ for Texas Baptist Men DR/Harvey.

Consider going as a church group or SBDR team or a combination of both. We will need trained and untrained volunteers from our churches to respond from now until we can help those who need it. This is the time to show the love of Christ to the people of Texas and Louisiana.

Train in SBDR ministry and mud out recovery.

Church groups go to https://www.namb.net/send-relief/disaster-relief/hurricane-harvey for info and registration form to go as a church group with NAMB SEND Relief. SEND Relief will work with your church to get a place to serve and set up lodging. Please do not self-deploy.