Newsline: Brethren Disaster Ministries responds to storms, flooding

[COBNews Newsline]

Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service -- June 13, 2008
Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford, News Director
800-323-8039 ext. 260 -- cobnews at brethren.org

BRETHREN DISASTER MINISTRIES RESPOND TO STORMS,
FLOODING IN MIDWEST AND PLAINS

(June 13, 2008) Elgin, IL -- Brethren Disaster Ministries and Children's
Disaster Services are monitoring and responding to situations in parts of
Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa following a rash of severe storms
and subsequent flooding. This includes participating in conference calls
with other response organizations to share information and to offer
services.

Brethren Disaster Ministries and Children's Disaster Services are
programs of the Church of the Brethren.

Children's Disaster Services staff have been in touch with American Red
Cross personnel in the hardest hit areas, offering to set up child care
projects in shelters or assistance centers. Teams of trained child care
volunteers will watch children at the centers or shelters while parents
clean up and gather the resources necessary to take care of their basic
needs and start recovering from the disaster.

Currently Children's Disaster Services has two project managers in the
field, a team of four child care volunteers at work in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
and 18 more volunteers who are ready to respond.

In Iowa, Children's Disaster Services is responding in the Cedar Falls
and Cedar Rapids areas. Lorna Grow of Dallas Center, Iowa, is
coordinating that response. Children's Disaster Services also has been
invited to set up child care in a combined shelter/service center in Cedar
Rapids. Grow has reported that the evacuation of Des Moines may mean
there is a need for child care volunteers to work in a shelter there as well.

In Indiana, Ken Kline from Lima, Ohio, will serve as project manager
and is assessing the child care needs in the five American Red Cross
service centers that are currently open.

Brethren Disaster Ministries staff have made contact with the
denomination's district offices to offer support and advice. District
disaster coordinators have been continuously gathering data, sharing
needs, and making services known to the disaster-impacted
communities.

In Iowa this morning, Tim Button-Harrison, executive minister of the
Church of the Brethren's Northern Plains District, took part in a
conference call with ecumenical leaders and disaster responders
including staff of Brethren Disaster Ministries. 

He also has been checking in with Church of the Brethren congregations
along the flooding Cedar River: First Baptist/Brethren Church in Cedar
Rapids, Greene Church of the Brethren which is a yoked parish with a
Methodist church, Hammond Avenue Brethren Church in Waterloo, and
South Waterloo Church of the Brethren.

Button-Harrison reported that some members of First Baptist/Brethren
Church have probably lost homes and businesses, and there are a number
of families at South Waterloo Church of the Brethren whose homes have
been flooded. One of the South Waterloo families has been unable to get
to their house because of flooding and is living in a motel, while other
families have flooded basements. The South Waterloo Church is giving
funds to church families who do not have a place to stay, to help them
through this difficult time, he said.

The South Waterloo Church has some flooding in its basement, Button-
Harrison said, and the Methodist church affiliated with Greene Church
of the Brethren also has a flooded basement. A flooded basement "is a
pretty common thing right now!" he said. "The question is how much. If
you've got four-to-five feet (of water) you may have lost everything."

Button-Harrison also called attention to the similarities with floods in
1993. "In 1993 they talked about it being a once in a 500 year flood," he
said. "It's like we're getting a 500-year flood every 15 years."

Meanwhile, two grants from the Church of the Brethren's Emergency
Disaster Fund totaling $11,000 have been issued in response to an appeal
from Church World Service. These grants are supporting the work of
CWS to supply material aid, deploy staff for trainings, and financially
support Long-Term Recovery Groups working in the affected areas.

An appeal for Emergency Clean-Up Buckets for distribution in the
Indiana flood area has been issued by CWS. Donors should not ship the
buckets to the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md., for this
response. Instead, CWS has established a local collection point in
Indiana: Penn Products Warehouse, 6075 Lakeside Blvd., Indianapolis,
IN 46278; 317-388-8580 ext. 298. Drop-off is between 8 a.m. and 4:30
p.m. For more information contact the office of CWS at Elkhart, Ind., at
574-264-3102. Go to www.churchworldservice.org/kits/cleanup-
kits.html for information about what to include in the kits.

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to
continuing the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its
faith in community. The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and
Pietist faith traditions and is one of the three Historic Peace Churches. It
celebrates its 300th anniversary in 2008. It counts close to 125,000
members across the United States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and
sister churches in Nigeria, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and
India.

(Jane Yount, who serves as coordinator for Brethren Disaster Ministries;
Judy Bezon, director of Children's Disaster Services; and Zachary
Wolgemuth, associate director of Brethren Disaster Ministries,
contributed to this report.)

                     # # #

For more information contact:

Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
Director of News Services
Church of the Brethren General Board
1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120
800-323-8039 ext. 260
cobnews at brethren.org

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