Utah churches are going extra mile in relief efforts
Utah's faith communities are working with national religious and secular organizations to ship relief supplies, collect funding, organize feeding and cleanup teams and to pray for the tens of thousands of people devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
 At the Bishop's Central Storehouse in Salt Lake City, warehouseman Charles Christensen loads supplies on a truck to be sent to states affected by Katrina.  Michael Brandy, Deseret Morning News |
Fourteen semitrailer truck loads of ready-to-eat food, water, sleeping bags and tents have left Salt Lake City from the Bishop's Storehouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some of them as early as last Sunday. Additional containers were being loaded Wednesday afternoon for immediate shipment.
Kevin Nield, director of Bishops' Storehouse Services, told reporters that areas of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi appear to be hardest hit, and the supplies being shipped there are in addition to food, water and other items that were pre-positioned at the church's storehouses around the region
LDS Church spokesman Dale Bills said several LDS church buildings, including those in Alexandria, La., as well as Jackson and Hattiesburg, Miss., are being used as emergency shelters to house those displaced by the storms, and they will also serve as distribution points for LDS relief supplies.
LDS missionaries were evacuated from the areas hit by the storm last weekend, and all are accounted for, he said.
Bennie O. Lilly, area welfare manager for the LDS Church's North American Southeast Area, told the Deseret Morning News via satellite phone from the church's storehouse in Slidell, La., which is serving as the primary distribution point for relief supplies. He said that in southern Louisiana and Mississippi the devastation is so widespread that local church leaders have been unable to account for all of their members there.
From 5,000 to 10,000 Latter-day Saints live in the affected areas, and with communication systems down, accounting for everyone is difficult, he said.
Lilly said local church leaders are responding to the needs of their congregations as well as can be expected at this point, but many face major challenges in dealing with their personal losses and circumstances. For example, President Barry Griggs of the Gulfport, Miss., stake reported in his first contact with regional leaders that his home had been destroyed.
"He was headed in his car toward North Carolina to drop off his wife," who has some health problems and needed to be evacuated. "Then he'll turn around and come back to the devastation of his own situation, in addition to trying to meet the needs of members in that area. When your home is destroyed, there's just so much you can do."
Communications in the area at this point are tenuous at best, Lillie said, illustrated by the fact that his satellite phone lost contact five different times during a 10-minute conversation with the newspaper. Still, he is grateful to have the equipment, which has also been used by local police and fire agencies in the immediate area. With spotty phone communication, "we just have to capture the information coming and going as fast as we can before we lose the signal."
A bishop from the church's Picayune, Miss., area was at the storehouse with Lillie to pick up a load of relief supplies for the members of his congregation, but phone service was lost before he was able to relay information to the newspaper about conditions in his area.
Other faith groups are also involved in a variety of ways.
Wade Gaylor, disaster relief director for the Southern Baptist Utah-Idaho Convention, said his organization is coordinating with the national Southern Baptist Convention to help provide equipment and manpower. Two trucks have already been flown from Salt Lake City to Shreveport, La., one of them to be used by the Southern Baptist Convention's national relief director to assess damage and direct relief efforts.
A local couple has been dispatched with the other truck to work in the convention's disaster center in Alpharetta, Ga., for about a week to help coordinate disaster response.
Nationally, the Red Cross has asked Southern Baptists to help prepare 500,000 meals per day for the next 90 days, Gaylor said. "We have an agreement with the national Red Cross — they provide us with the food, we prepare it and they serve it. Southern Baptists actually cook about 90 percent of the food the Red Cross serves."
As part of that effort, local feeding teams of 15-20 people each will be dispatched in the next three weeks to work with the Red Cross. Gaylor said a few opt to take their own RVs, but most will simply drive to the area and work out of existing Southern Baptist churches.
Gaylor is also coordinating the deployment of feeding units and cleanup and recovery units — including portable showers, washers and dryers — that will be dispatched from Utah and Idaho in the next few weeks. Coordinators from the national convention are on the ground with satellite phones and communicating the needs with the national relief offices in Atlanta, which then requests help from the state conventions.
Local Baptist churches will also be making quilts to be sent out with the feeding and cleanup units when they leave Utah, he said. Donations are being requested to help fund the local relief efforts and can be made by calling Norma Fox at 801-572-5350. Checks may also be mailed to the Southern Baptist Utah-Idaho Convention, 12401 S. 450 East #G1, Draper, UT 84020, made out to that organization.
Local Baptist churches will also be praying for those who have been affected, Gaylor said. "Right now they just need a lot of prayer. People are seriously in chaos out there right now and need a lot of prayer."
Pastor Greg Johnson, director of a group of local evangelical churches called Standing Together, said many of them are calling on their members to donate money for relief through the Christian Emergency Network (CEN) — www.christianemergencynetwork.com — or the local Salvation Army. On Wednesday, he e-mailed members of the group, encouraging them to pray for the victims and their challenges and to take a special offering that would be channeled either through their own denominational channels or through CEN or the local Salvation Army.
As of Wednesday afternoon, First Church of the Nazarene and Valley Assembly of God were planning to seek donations and offer prayers. Standing Together will also be making a donation through CEN in the name of local Utah evangelical churches, Johnson said, and everyone interested is encouraged to participate with the World Prayer Team in praying for relief. See www.worldprayerteam.org.
The Rev. Dan Webster, spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, said donations are being solicited through the national Episcopal Relief and Development organization, and a link to that organization can be reached through the diocesan Web site at www.episcopal-ut.org.
"They've been preparing for several days to work with the outreach ministries of Episcopal dioceses along the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, and they're ready to move forward." He said Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the the Episcopal Church USA is forwarding a letter to be read in all parishes on Sunday talking about the relief effort and asking for help.
Planning is under way for a local diocesan response, which may include a call for prayer for those in the affected areas, and could include fund-raising. In other areas of the country, the Episcopal Foundation of Texas voted to send an emergency grant of $50,000 to both the Dioceses of Louisiana and Mississippi, and the Diocese of Texas hopes to raise $100,000 this Sunday from its 158 congregations.
Rabbi Tracee Rosen of Congregation Kol Ami said Utah's Jewish community will try to come up with some type of response in the coming days once assessment has been done and they are able to determine the most appropriate way to respond.
"We want to make sure our donations are channeled to give as much direct help as possible." No special prayer services are planned, but "we will be making special mention of the folks down there. A number of people in our congregation have relatives that have been affected."
Though calls to spokespersons for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City had yet to be returned at press time, the diocese is one of 195 throughout the country that will be asked to participate in a National Collection for Hurricane Relief, announced Wednesday by Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"Catholic Charities USA, working with the local diocesan Catholic Charities, has a professional and well-de- veloped system of reviewing the needs and providing help where it can accomplish the most good." Diocesan collections and individual donations can be sent to the 2005 Hurricane Relief Fund, Catholic Charities USA, P.O. Box 25168, Alexandria, VA 22313-9788.