PDA — the relief and development agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s General Assembly Council is also launching a comprehensive six-week information campaign to highlight the ways congregations and individuals can help those affected by spring and summer storms from Iowa through the gulf coast and on into heavily-hit Caribbean nations such as Haiti and Cuba.
Presbyterians will have several venues for prayer, financial and hands-on support of people all along the vast swath of devastation. One or more new PDA Volunteer Villages will be established in Texas in addition to the six already established on the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
After a conference call Sept. 16 involving PDA staff and volunteers as well as synod and presbytery staffers in the affected regions, Synod of the Sun Executive Judy Fletcher said, “The four immediate actions we can take involve spiritual care, clean-up/hygiene/school kits, prayer, and financial support.”
Cimarron Presbytery, one of the denomination’s smallest, released $2,000 from a hunger fund to help feed the survivors and evacuees of the recent hurricanes in its synod, according to Leah Hrachovec, associate pastor of First Church of Stillwater, Okla., and member of the synod’s executive committee.
Synod of the Sun will receive the money and distribute it to the Presbyteries of New Covenant and South Louisiana. Grace Presbytery will join Arkansas Presbytery’s effort in raising “bucket bucks” from congregations this Sunday (Sept. 21), according to Grace’s PDA contact person, Rick Carus.
Congregations are invited to send checks made to “Ferncliff Camp,” 1720 Ferncliff Rd, Little Rock, Ark. 72223, with a memo of “emergency clean-up kits.” Ferncliff became host of a disaster assistance and call center for the PC(USA) and Church World Service in 2005.
PDA staff member John Robinson will plan spiritual care team training events, to be held in Grace Presbytery, for pastors in early October. Those trained pastors would then be available to support the caregivers and pastors in the disaster recovery process.
Fletcher said she hopes cleanup supplies in a large truck or trucks can be sent off with prayer and signs of support from Ferncliff Camp to the Gulf Coast as “real and symbolic support from Presbyterian congregations across the country for all people struggling to recover or relocate.”
