This past week Rick Schmoldt and I attended our Southern District convention. Part of the agenda is always a report from our Synod President. In the midst of our covid issues and the unrest around the world it is amazing to see how God continues to work. Part of the president’s report was our continuing work in disaster response. To date we have trained 19,000 people in emergency response workshops and maintain a data base of 5000 active volunteers. This all started with the efforts of the Southern District after Katrina.
It was October of 2005 Katrina had just devastated the Gulf coast. Atonement had just finished their new campus. FEMA had required us to raise the lot elevation 4 ft, but we decided to go a little higher. The flood waters came up to the threshold. We installed water lines and electric in the parking lot and soccer fields intended for outdoor events. Now, we had an unflooded campus with the ability to host volunteers to help with the restoration. No one seemed to know where to start, but Lutheran Disaster Response was willing to give it a go. I remember that first meeting a team came down to help setup camp. They had been active in disaster relief for years, but stood there scratching their heads, the area was so vast there was no undamaged community to use as a staging area. The Southern District bought tents and cots and Camp Atonement was up and running in a few days. Trinity sent Chuck Jett to help. As the restoration continued, the camp was moved to New Orleans East and eventually became Camp Restore which is still in operation today and has become the model and Network for relief work across Synod.
One of Chuck’s favorite volunteers was a Pastor from Long Island Rev. Justin Vetrano who with his congregation restored over 100 homes. Many of you have seen my face book post. Justin has now taken that experience and is using it to help the Ukrainian refugees and provide aid and medical supplies to those on the front lines.
President Harrison was intent on pointing out this all started with us. We go about our business and we reach out to others and offer assistance often oblivious to how God is using us. We see the pain and the destruction and often feel our efforts don’t make a difference. All the while God is still choreographing the people and events impacting lives and multiplying resources in ways we don’t even know are happening even in the midst of troubled and scary times and so St. Paul to writes:
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Pastor Mark
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