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February 10, 2021: Two Wednesdays ago Steve Austvold talked to us about his mission trip to Lake Charles, Louisiana to help out after it had been hit by two hurricanes/tornadoes. Steve is involved in mission mobilization for churches in North Dakota and Minnesota and, because of the pandemic, the only place teams can go to right now to offer assistance is in the United States. Lake Charles is half-way between New Orleans and Houston, about a three hour drive to each. Working with Cornerstone Church locally, the mission was part of ReachGlobal's crisis response effort, part of the EFCA (Evangelical Free Church of America). The first hurricane, Laura, hit August 27th as a Category 4 storm with winds reaching up to 150 mph and spawning at least 200 tornadoes. The second hurricane, Delta, hit on October 9th as a Category 2 storm, with winds up to 100 mph but accompanied by torrential rains. The first storm took off roofs and damaged buildings while the second saw 15 inches of rain fall in two days. Laura caused 77 fatalities and an estimated $19.1 billion in damages; Delta caused six deaths and over $3 billion in damages. Lake Charles is a town of about 78,000 people; Steve noted that the tallest building in the town, a 22 story Capital One office, lost over one-half of its windows on one side of the structure. The mission of the EFCA is to show the LOVE OF CHRIST to those in need, recognizing that crises such as that suffered by Lake Charles create a mission field. The basic effort is to find a church to partner with and then they help the church refurbish itself, after which they do outreach in the community, hearing peoples' stories and praying with them. Steve's team, consisting of four individuals, was the first one to go to Lake Charles through ReachGlobal. They worked at Lake Charles Bible Church, which has about 200 members, doing demolition work necessitated by the six inches of water that came into the building. They all worked as volunteers. One of the benefits Steve mentioned was to be able to eat fried alligator tail (it "tasted like chicken") and Shrimp Boudin in rice. Steve expects ReachGlobal to be working in Lake Charles for three years, with teams needed weekly throughout the year; another 11 person team from churches in Bemidji and Thief River Falls will be going down soon, with Steve in its company. We were asked to pray for the staff of the church, volunteers and homeowners who are working there way through the disaster created by the two storms. You can learn more about the organization's mission work at go.efca.org/ministries/reachglobal. And if you want to hear more about crawfish sand castles (steeple crossers(?)), talk to Steve or Ken Harty. February 17, 2021: Steve Andrews had Taylor Eskew, President of the Chinatown Rotary Club in New York City, join us long distance to talk about the grant her club obtained from The Rotary Foundation to assist local businesses to survive the pandemic. Taylor told us that if the Rotary International Convention in Hawaii had not been cancelled due to the pandemic, it would have been her 12th convention, that she is the Executive Secretary for Rotary District 7230, has been a Rotarian for 30 years, and that there are only six Rotary clubs in New York City. Businesses in Chinatown were hit hard by the pandemic because of the virus' origin in China. Her club, 27 members strong, applied for and received an economic development grant from The Rotary Foundation, ultimately raising $69,000 to help local businesses get back on their feet. Taylor said that they wanted to help businesses reopen, stay open and revive and that the problems they had to surmount were 1) everyone's fear of the virus in Chinatown, both employees and customers, and 2) dealing with very small businesses that were cash based operation. They enlisted a Rotary Club in Hong Kong as their international partner. Phase I of the project was to make everyone feel safe coming into Chinatown. They arranged routine testing of employees of 16 businesses by an upstart lab that actually went to the employees' worksites to administer the tests. The tests cost $10 each and the grant allowed the Chinatown Rotary Club to pay for the tests for the participating businesses for three months. Now four businesses are about to rotate off the project (they can choose to continue to pay the same amount to continue the testing) and four new ones are to be added. Now the club is also offering weekly roundtables for businesses to identify other problems the pandemic has created in an effort to find ways to address those, including such things as rent and rent forgiveness, insurance issues, etc. Businesses participating include five restaurants, a law firm, an art gallery -- a real mix. The project has garnered a lot of good media coverage and Taylor shared with us a news clip from a NYC television station talking about it. The night before her presentation to us Taylor had been interviewed on The Daily Show. The club also benefited from a Rotarian's donation to a foundation of enough money for Rotary clubs in the area to participate in a "Million Mask Challenge," which iHeartRADIO covered with a lengthy blog. We also learned that when meeting in person, club members gather at the oldest family owned Cantonese restaurant in China, and that they almost treat Steve as a member as he has visited so many times. |
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