Friends in the AWF Conference,
First I want to say thank you to all of the churches that have been patiently waiting to help the Louisiana Conference with supplies and teams. I can’t begin to express how much it means to me to have your trust as we support our brothers and sisters in Louisiana.
Last week we received a special invitation from the Louisiana Conference to help with the initial organization of relief needs. Several trained assessors from our conference and I have spent the last few days in Ponchatoula, LA, helping with boots-on-the-ground organization and assessments. We also had some of our select ERTs with heavy equipment helping with large tree work. Our goal was to provide initial relief, help set up housing sites, and pave the way for the arrival of more supplies and volunteers.
I can tell you that the need in Louisiana is significant. We will be assisting in two ways: by sending supplies and by sending teams. Too many churches have self-deployed on their own from our conference as well as others without going through the proper conference channels. I can tell you first hand that it has caused disorganization as well as a great deal of wasted time and energy. Please help us to be a good partner with the Louisiana Conference by following the below instructions.
SUPPLIES
As a conference we will be collecting supplies for the Louisiana Conference. They only have three locations up and running for Ida relief so they are asking us as a conference to be as organized as possible with our delivery schedule. We will be collecting SPECIFIC items for one week only starting on Sunday the 12th and ending on Sunday the 19th. Each district will have one or more drop-off location(s). It will be your responsibility to connect with the drop-off site prior to taking your supplies to ensure that someone will be there to receive them.
The district locations are as follows:
The list of requested supplies is as follows:
DO NOT BRING !!!!!!!!!!
TEAMS
The Louisiana conference is looking for teams to help with tarping, debris removal, mucking and gutting, and feeding. All teams need to go through their district coordinator prior to deploying. Your district coordinator will communicate with me and we will connect you with the proper site in the Louisiana conference based on your skill sets. All teams also need to be self-sufficient with food, water and fuel. All three of these items are scarce and we need to not be a drain on the local needs. All teams that are wanting to deploy must also have a minimum of 50% of your team ERT trained. Please direct any questions to your District Disaster Coordinator.
Thank you all for your service and being the hands and feet of Christ. Please continue to pray with me for those recovering from Hurricane Ida.
In Christ,
Rev. Chris Ackerman
AWF Director of Disaster Response