ELCA NEWS SERVICE
December 16, 2003
Lutherans Continue Disaster Response In Southern California
03-226-MR
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Lutheran Disaster Response, a ministry of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod, continues to assist survivors of wildfires that struck five
counties in Southern California this fall.
Lutheran Disaster Response has issued about $100,000 in grants to
provide people "with things they need for basic existence," said the Rev.
Gilbert B. Furst, director of Lutheran Disaster Response.
The grants are "helping to minister to the elderly, the poor, the
unemployed and the children," Furst said. "Camp Noah," a weeklong day
camp for children traumatized by disasters, is being planned, as well as
support for pastors "who are doing intense ministry on the front lines,"
Furst said.
Earlier this month Furst spent several days in San Bernardino and San
Diego counties, "the two worst of the five counties affected by the
wildfires." About "750,000 acres burned" with more than "3,600 houses
destroyed," he reported. Twenty people died from the wildfires.
"In all my years of disaster response ministries, I have never seen
such widespread and total destruction as I saw these past days in southern
California," Furst said.
"Everything was gray and black. The ground was burned and baked.
Vegetation was gone and bare boulders showed on mountain sides. In [some]
communities there is random destruction. The fires were fanned by the
Santa Ana winds, so they acted like tornadoes, randomly destroying one
house and not another, burning entire blocks and sparing others. The air
smelled of charred wood and was full of ash," he said.
Furst said he met with pastors serving Lutheran congregations in
southern California that have been affected by the wildfires. Lutheran
Disaster Response has set up offices at several church facilities,
including Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, Ramona, a town in San Diego
County, where three people from the congregation died in the fires.
"Lutheran Disaster Response is working in cooperation with the United
Methodists in case management and distribution of emergency supplies,"
Furst said.
Monetary contributions will provide the resources needed to assist
with immediate emergency needs, cleanup provisions, long-term and unmet
needs, as well as spiritual and emotional counseling, added Furst. It
will "sustain our Lutheran presence, providing ministry to so many
[people] who are presently helpless and hopeless, bringing them help and
hope in the long haul," he said.
DOMESTIC DISASTERS:
Editors: When listing organizations receiving funds to aid survivors of
major disasters inside the United States, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin
Islands, please include:
ELCA Domestic Disaster Response, P.O. Box 71764, Chicago, Illinois
60694-1764
Credit card gift line: 1-800-638-3522
Credit card gifts via Internet: http://www.elca.org/disaster
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/news
