To: [log in to unmask]
Dear friends in Christ,
"The Biblical witness is that God brings chaos under control." Dr. Foster
McCurley highlighted this Biblical message as he and Rabbi Alan Weitzman
met with 94 pastors, counselors, and interfaith leaders at Texas Lutheran
University last month. The chaos in this instance is 1,300 square miles
southeast of San Antonio affected by record-setting floods last October.
Lutheran Disaster Response is continuing recovery efforts in Texas, and it
is anticipated volunteers will be needed for at least another year. The
ministry of rebuilding lives and repairing houses continues.
God bringing chaos under control was the message Dr. Ann Eissfeldt brought
to a gathering of over 200 teachers and administrators of the Rocky
Mountain School District recently. The chaos in Colorado is the aftermath
following the Littleton school shootings in April. LDR continues its
support to the survivors of and caregivers to that massacre.
God bringing chaos under control was part of Dr. Gary Harbaugh's recent
retreat with the LDR staff leaders from Minnesota, North Dakota, South
Dakota. The response to the chaos of the upper Midwest blizzards and
floods was finally coming to a close after two years of ministry efforts,
and the staff leaders were completing their significant ministries.
Indeed, God brings chaos under control. But disaster chaos doesn't end
when the story no longer appears on the evening news or in newspapers.
God's people continue to bring help and hope to survivors of disasters -
natural, human-caused, or intentional - for the long haul, long after the
headlines end.
Lutheran Disaster Response (the cooperative ministry of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) is still
responding to Hurricane Georges in Puerto Rico (9/98); southeast Texas
floods (10/98); Kansas floods (11/98); Little Rock tornadoes (1/99),
Littleton school shootings (4/99), Kansas and Oklahoma tornadoes (5/99);
and northeast Iowa floods (5/99).
Your prayers, your volunteering, your contributions, help the church
continue its witness that "God brings chaos under control." Your on-going
support enables LDR to distribute life-saving emergency supplies, to
coordinate volunteers, to distribute children's materials, to provide
insightful theologians and skilled Lutheran counselors - to bring hope and
help - to disaster survivors and to disaster caregivers. As the people of
God, you can participate in that mission of bringing chaos under control.
To learn of volunteer opportunities:
Call Johanna Olson (ELCA Assistant for Domestic Disaster Response)
1-773-380-2822
To contibute:
ELCA DOMESTIC Disaster Response
PO Box 71764
Chicago, Illinois 60694-1764
Credit card gift line: 1-800-638-3522
LC-MS World Relief
P.O. Box 66861
St. Louis, MO 63166-9810
Credit card gift line: 1-888-930-4438
Thanks for all you are doing to continue living the story of God's love.
In Christ,
Gil Furst
GILBERT B. FURST (written on Thu, Jun 3, 1999, at 8:59 pm)
Director, ELCA Domestic Disaster Response (Division for Church in Society),
Lutheran Disaster Response (A cooperative ministry of the ELCA and LCMS)
8765 W. Higgins Rd., Chicago 60631 PHONE: 773-380-2822 FAX: 773-380-2493
Visit our website: www.elca.org/dcs/disaster
|