Hurricane Katrina Relief Effort
Matthew 23:11: He who is greatest among you shall be your servant.
Psalm 119:76: Let thy steadfast love be ready to comfort me according to thy promise to thy servant.
Below is an email from the Rector of St. Patrick's Episcopal Churchin Long Beach, Mississippi.
Friends
You will get this as a group email soon, waiting on morefolks to sign on. But here's an update email a few of you DID get over theweekend.
It can serve as a discussion starter for all of us.Again, thanks for all you do for us, and your prayers. You give us hope, youreally do.....
Greetings to all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
First of all, please accept my sincere apology for thelong delay in hearing from us. Unknown to me, there was a problem with theemail listserv, and emails I was sending to you were not being delivered. Wehope it is all cleared up now.
It is way past time to give you an update on our recoveryand rebuilding progress. Much of this information is also available on our website: stpatricks.dioms.org.
Most of you know we have been through a long process ofprayerfully evaluating property and negotiating a contract for our newlocation.
That process is "almost" complete. We shouldclose on the new property by the end of July! We will certainly let you knowwhen that happens, and we plan a BIG party on the new location as soon aspossible.
We returned to worship at Camp Coast Care in February,and we are greatly enjoying the new building at CCC - allowing us airconditioned comfort! This is a BIG DEAL! We hold two services on Sundaymornings and continue our Wednesday night Healing and Holy Eucharist, which hasbecome a very important time for the volunteers staying at CCC.
Meanwhile our vestry and building committee have beenworking hard. We have received a site master plan from our architects (a viewof the master plan is on our website). We have spent June doing focus groupwork on the various design elements of our first building. Our plan is toconstruct a multi-purpose building that will serve as worship and fellowshipspace (and eventually be our Parish Hall), with a kitchen, nursery, classrooms,and office space. The church "proper" will be built at a later datewhen financing is possible. We had hoped to include the shell of a combinedoutreach / youth building in this first phase but we do not believe we willhave adequate funding for that.
The Diocese of Mississippi is loaning us the money topurchase the property, and we will pay that loan back when we sell our beachproperty (which will not be any time soon as property values on the beach arenot where they will be). The construction costs of the new building will be ourresponsibility, using insurance proceeds and donations. Our folks are alreadygiving sacrificially to try and balance a budget with over half of ourcongregation gone, so a capital campaign is not an option for us.
Currently we are almost one million dollars short of thefunds needed to build this first building. Construction costs have increasedenormously on the Coast. Through very generous donors, especially the Dioceseof Florida, we have money to begin, but we have to first figure out a way toclose the gap.
I have heard the last 23 months from many of you askinghow you can help. You have all done so much for us, and for the people of theCoast of Mississippi. We still need volunteer teams, and will need them for along time to come. Meanwhile, St. Patrick's is finally in a position to receivesome of the type of help many of you have been offering.
First and foremost, of course, we need to raisesignificant funds to accomplish our first building project. I am happy to cometo your parishes to tell our story and meet folks face to face. In particularif there is potential for major donors in your Parish who may want to help, I wouldlove to have the opportunity to speak with them. I am in the process of liningup a couple of trips for the fall, and if you are interested in that, pleaselet me know right away.
We also are in need of "stuff". We need to buyalbs to replace those lost in the storm, we need (and finally have a place tostore) new altar furnishings - things like torches, etc. Thanks to a verygenerous donation from St. Paul's in Indianapolis, we have BCPs and Hymnalsalready.
We also are open to suggestions from you, our wonderfulpartner parishes. Would a parish like to "adopt a room" in the newbuilding - equip the nursery or a classroom, or buy chairs for the Parish Hall/ Worship area?
I know there are some very creative folks out there whowill have fantastic ideas. Please share them with us.
Lastly, please know it is always difficult to ask forhelp in this way. We have had to learn, since Katrina, to accept help. We areprideful people, and this is not easy. At the same time, we know it is ablessing to others to give, as it is a blessing to us to receive. We have beenso incredibly blessed by your support, your love, your presence, and yourprayers. We cannot do this without your help. We are determined to be of greatservice to the Long Beach community, a church that has risen from disaster toserve others in Christ's name.
I thank you for helping us be just that. I cannot waitfor the day when we will invite you all to share in the opening of our newchurch home.
God bless
David Knight+
Rector, St. Patrick's, Long Beach, Mississippi
Since we sent our last mission team to Mississippi, St. Matthew’s has been transitioning away from crisis mode into organizing our efforts so that we can respond to both long term needs of victims (such as our adoption of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Long Beach, Mississippi) and crises requiring immediate response.
The Vestry has adopted the following charter for a new Relief Team to be convened at St. Matthew’s
“To make recommendations to the Vestry as to relief efforts which St. Matthew’s should target its resources, including recommendations for making financial appeals to the congregation; To organize use of resources including volunteer efforts, mission trips, food drives, coat drives, etc. to meet the needs of those affected by the disasters which St. Matthew’s targets; To oversee the “adoption” and continued support of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Mississippi.
The Relief Team will be a sub-committee of Outreach and will report to the chairperson of the Outreach committee. The Financial Committee Chairperson will oversee the financial aspects of the Relief Team’s activities such as financial appeals approved by the Vestry, sending funds, financing mission trips, etc.”
The Team is still being assembled, but we will publish the names of the Team members as soon as that information is available. One of the tasks of this Team will be to coordinate mission trips and we are certain additional opportunities to go to Mississippi will be available in the near future.
Make sure to return to this page for regular updates on the formation of the Relief Team and the relief efforts of St. Matthew’s.
For more information about what you can do, here are a few websites you can visit:
Last Updated on 7/20/2007 10:25:20 AM