DISASTER RESPONSE

LA fires: Pacific Southwest District executive minister Russ Matteson recently asked for prayers for the Conexión Pasadena congregation, the closest Church of the Brethren congregation to the wildfires in the Los Angeles area. The parsonage, where pastors Juan Pablo Plaza and Adriana Rios and their family had been living, was destroyed in the Eaton Fire on Jan. 7. At last report, the church building and another parsonage the congregation owns were still standing. Many members of that congregation and others in the area have had to evacuate their homes. The denomination has nine congregations in the greater LA area. Prayers were requested for all of them, as well as first responders and others working in the crisis.

At its district board meeting this past weekend, Pacific Southwest created an emergency fund to support Brethren affected by the fires, contributing $2,500 from district funds to begin the response. Donations can be mailed to the Pacific Southwest District office at PO Box 760, Glendora, CA 91740 or at https://www.pswdcob.org/donate/. Note that gifts are for fire relief. Donations for the broader relief effort can also be send to Brethren Disaster Ministries’ Emergency Disaster Fund at https://www.brethren.org/bdm/edf/.

Early on Jan. 1, a truck was driven into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 people and injuring 35 others. Children’s Disaster Services (CDS) sent a Critical Response Childcare team on Jan. 5 to provide a calm presence for the children of victims or children of families of the victims. Critical Response Childcare teams are trained above and beyond the typical CDS volunteers, prepared to serve following mass casualty events. Since 1997, CDS’s Critical Response Childcare teams have responded to several mass shootings including in Orlando and Las Vegas, and more recently in Uvalde and Lewiston.

The church is also supporting collections of disaster relief kits by Church World Service (CWS), many of which are warehoused and shipped by the denomination’s Material Resources staff at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md. Most needed right now are Clean-Up Buckets, and also Hygiene Kits and Period Packs. Find out how to assemble these kits at https://cwskits.org/assemble-kits. Staff are encouraging people who put together CWS kits to take them to a CWS “depot”; find locations at https://cwskits.org/ship-kits. To make a monetary donation for hurricane relief, go to www.brethren.org/givehurricaneresponse or send via mail, through checks made out to the Emergency Disaster Fund with “hurricane response” in the notation line. Mail to: Emergency Disaster Fund, Church of the Brethren, 1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin IL 60120. For more tips for how to help, visit www.brethren.org/news/2024/how-you-can-help. 

Brethren Disaster Ministries has updated its website with information for its second project response, which will mark a return to projects in Dawson Springs, Kentucky. The area was struck by a strong tornado in 2021. It joins another BDM rebuilding site in Letcher County, Ky. Information is at: https://www.brethren.org/bdm/rebuild/schedules/.