Regular readers: This week’s edition of The Mailbag answers the question I’ve received from several readers: “How can we help with flood relief?” I’m posting it today, Sunday, in hopes you can catch your pastor or small group at church and talk to them about sending a team or a love offering. Please share this around to help us get the word out, and thank you so much for your love and desire to help.
Imagine 90% of the homes and businesses in your town destroyed by a flood. Thousands of your friends and neighbors rescued from rapidly rising deadly currents by boat, sometimes, literally, with only the clothes on their backs. Some separated from spouses or young children for days because they had to get into different boats and ended up at different shelters. No homes to go back to. No jobs to go back to because businesses flood just like homes do. No cars to drive because cars flood, too. No clothes, no food, and often, no money to rebuild and replace everything they owned.
Now try to imagine, in the aftermath, having to choose whether to scramble to clean out your own flood ravaged house before it molds and mildews or helping a loved one who desperately needs you. Or, if your home didn’t flood, feeling torn between helping your family, your best friend, your church, and other relief ministries.
This is the situation my community, and communities across south Louisiana, are facing right now. Those of us whose homes and businesses God spared are doing what we can to help friends, loved ones, and strangers, but we are spread dreadfully thin. Shelters and relief ministries are in desperate need of food, supplies, and volunteers.
In Louisiana, we take great pride in taking care of our own, and our locals are doing an astounding job of it. But the situation is so overwhelming that this time we need help.
We need your help. We need your church’s help.
How? Could you spare a few days or more to come down and volunteer with a flood relief ministry? Could your church send a team? Would you like to make a donation, or could your church collect a love offering, to help the many people whose lives have been turned upside down by the flood?
If so, I’d like to direct you to the relief efforts at New Covenant Church. New Covenant is about 15 minutes from me in Denham Springs, Louisiana, one of the hardest hit areas. Blessedly, God spared this precious church to be a ministry to others during this difficult time.
New Covenant is a doctrinally sound local church where several friends and loved ones of mine, including the associate pastor (who is heading up flood relief efforts there), are members. My family and I have worshiped with New Covenant numerous times. If you or your church would like to help by making a donation, I can personally assure you that your money will be handled in a godly way and will go directly to flood victims who will also hear the biblical gospel. New Covenant needs volunteers for various aspects of relief ministry, too, and would welcome you or a group from your church if you are able to come down here and help out.
You can give on line or via text. And, if you’d like to come down and help out, you can contact Pastor Todd Whirley by phone or e-mail, or (possibly more quickly- phone service is still somewhat spotty) by private message on Facebook or Twitter.
Michelle Lesley 
Reblogged this on The Cross Is All We Need.
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