UMCOR Bright Spots
IN TODAY’S ISSUE
October 23, 2008
Alabama-West Florida Reflects on Disaster Recovery MinistryRecounting Four Years of MinistryThis Week's QuoteRecovery StatsHurricane Ivan Response Begins Four Year Ministry……(slide show)
ALABAMA-WEST FLORIDA REFLECTS ON DISASTER RECOVERY MINISTRY
By Susan J. Meister, Domestic Disaster Response Correspondent
“I am just so happy with everything our churches have done to help people!” Miss Liz said. “They’ve done what Christ wants us to do!”
Miss Liz, a widow of a United Methodist pastor, received assistance from the Alabama-West Florida Conference Disaster Recovery Ministry after Hurricane Katrina contaminated her well. The ministry helped pay for a hookup to city water after volunteers laid pipe and connected it into her mobile home.
Over the past four years, the staff and volunteers in the AWF Disaster Recovery Ministry have helped people like Miss Liz recover from the destruction of hurricanes Ivan, Dennis and Katrina. Ivan, the strongest hurricane of the 2004 season, was the third costliest in US history, until it was displaced by Katrina and Wilma (2005) and Gustav and Ike (2008). Ivan made landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama and did extensive damage along the Alabama and Florida coastlines. In 2005, many of these same areas were hit by Dennis and Katrina.
Bishop Larry M. Goodpastor asked Clyde Pressley to help direct the new ministry in late 2004. In consultation with UMCOR, Pressley mobilized a staff and volunteers that have addressed needs effectively since then.
Team Reflects on Ministry
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Tommy Warren, Onsite Work Team Coordinator, points out the new windows installed at Miss Annie’s home in Mobile. |
“The Lord prepared me and made me available for this ministry in ways that I didn’t see,” Pressley remarked. “I had lived connectionalism all my life, but I have never lived it so spiritually as I’ve done here.”
The current team of Pressley, Tommy Warren, Robert Beeson, Martha Wood and Sharon Algood met recently to reflect on just a few of the persons they have assisted. They remarked on how Miss Liz waited two and a half years to ask for help for her contaminated well. They mentioned Miss Annie who had tarped and re-tarped her roof after Katrina without success, until a Meals on Wheels worker brought her situation to their attention. Martha was going to be present the next day when new furniture was delivered to Mr. Robert’s new mobile home in Baldwin County. Mr. Robert’s case came back to the AWF ministry from the County Long Term Recovery Committee when it stopped operations in March 2007.
“We’re the last ministry operating,” Pressley said. “Others have run out of money. We are so fortunate to have the means and person-power to do what we’ve done!”
Pressley and his team expect to close all their remaining cases by the end of the year.
Lives Have Been Changed
Case manager Martha Wood is sure that her local church has changed because of it’s involvement in disaster recovery ministry.
“St. Mark UMC always participated in missions and UMCOR offerings,” she said, “but after the hurricanes the church really stepped up. It was a stimulus to a renewed interest in missions. Being active made it real.”
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Case manager Martha Wood stands at the top of a new ramp built by volunteers at Miss Annie’s home. |
Alan Gantzhorn, associate pastor at First UMC, Pensacola in 2004, also began his career in disaster response after Ivan’s landfall. He helped organize food and flood bucket distribution and hosted volunteer teams. Now at Aldersgate UMC, Gantzhorn has worked with volunteers from the church to staff a Red Cross Shelter and encouraged flood bucket collections. He is also a member of a new group, the Interfaith Housing Coalition of Northwest Florida, which is working on developing affordable housing.
“Nothing in seminary or law school prepared me for this,” Gantzhorn laughed. “It is so rewarding to see those we’ve helped.”
Looking to The Future
Pressley said that he is working with newly-appointed Bishop Paul L. Leeland to define the future of the disaster recovery ministry.
“I think we want to keep some structural presence to reconstitute when it’s needed again,” he said. “We’ve organized and become knowledgeable over the past four years—we don’t want to let those skills atrophy.”
More on the Alabama-West Florida Disaster Recovery Ministry can be found at their web site.
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