Dear NCD Churches,

There is a great opportunity for your church to partner with ReachGlobal crisis response in their hurricane efforts in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  Last fall, two hurricanes hit Lake Charles six weeks apart.  The first hurricane brought 150 mile hour winds.  Image what that did to roofs and to buildings there.  Six week later, a second hurricane with 100 mile hour winds brought rain.  The mixture of strong winds and rain did a lot of damage to already compromised buildings.  At the Lake Charles Bible church where ReachGlobal crisis response is working, the church’s roof is still needing to be repaired.  This is also true for many homes in the area.

So what can teams do there?  When I had a team there in mid-March from two NCD EFC churches, our team of 11 people worked alongside of the crisis response staff on three job sites.  Our team spend two days removing brush and downed trees on a property that had lost 40 trees.  The final two days for our team took us to a home where we were doing demo work, removing carpet, tearing out a bathroom, pulling down ceilings that had mold and water damage.  A second team worked on a garage doing insultation work.  A third team did some siding, roofing, and flooring.  Each day all of our teams went out on neighborhood prayer walks.  It was a good time to meet neighbors, to hear their stories and to pray with them.

So who can go?  Anyone over the age of 14 up to the 80’s.  No skills are required to serve.  The team size is limited to around ten people per week due to covid restrictions.  This can be a great opportunity to serve this summer or also into the fall.  Crisis response hopes to be in the Lake Charles area for three years serving the community with the love of Jesus.

To get further information, please go to efca.org and look up crisis response.  To find specific dates that are open to serve go to serve@efca.org and send the email to Jessica.

If you want to serve with a team that I hope to lead again, please send me an email to steve.austvold@ncdefca.org.

In Christ,
Steve Austvold
NCD Mission Mobilizer