Over the years, I’ve covered the faith-based response to quite a few hurricanes.
I traveled to New Orleans after Katrina, Houston after Harvey, the Florida Panhandle after Michael and Puerto Rico after Irma and Maria. No doubt I’m forgetting a few.
Inevitably, those watching the disturbing images on television or social media want to help immediately. But typically, assessing the needs requires a bit of time.
That leads us to Hurricane Ian, the megastorm setting its sights on South Carolina’s coast after causing catastrophic damage in Florida.
“The best way to help after Hurricane Ian is to give financially to established organizations responding to the disaster,” said Jamie Aten, co-founder of Spiritual First Aid and co-director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College in Illinois.
“Reach out to those you know who have been impacted to ask how you might help,” Aten added. “Our research shows that providing spiritual support and attending to basic needs helps reduce distress in the face of disasters.”
At Christianity Today, Aten and Kent Annan provide a “free spiritual and emotional toolkit for Hurricane Ian.”
President Joe Biden on Thursday praised Federal Emergency Management Agency workers mobilizing to help. The federal government’s response is, of course, crucial after a natural disaster.
But so is that of the “faith-based FEMA” — from Mennonite chainsaw crews to Southern Baptist feeding teams to Seventh-day Adventist warehousing experts adept at collecting, organizing and logging relief supplies, as I’ve written previously.
An umbrella group of faith-based agencies and secular charities comprise the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (National VOAD).
Among the help on its way to Florida: tractor-trailer rigs full of food and emergency supplies from Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee. Also: two field kitchens staffed with about 20 volunteers from the Southern Baptists of Texas’ disaster relief ministry.
“This captures the spirit of our volunteers,” Scottie Stice, the Texas group’s director, told the Houston Chronicle. “We’re a faith-based organization and have been praying against this hurricane, but we stand ready to serve the needs of the survivors in Florida with hot meals and recovery operations afterwards.”
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. For suburban Texas men, a workout craze with a side of faith: “In a Houston suburb, men have been flocking to a workout group that promises more than just a sweat session; together, they aim to ease male loneliness,” the New York Times’ Ruth Graham reports.
Graham’s exceptional front-page story inspired interesting reflections on “the crisis of masculinity” by David French at The Dispatch.
2. Bolsonaro campaign to evangelicals: Brazil’s soul at stake: This story is the first of a two-part package by The Associated Press’ David Biller on the intersection of politics and religions in South America’s largest country, which has a population of roughly 215 million.
Read the second part: “In sacred Brazil dunes, critics see evangelical encroachment.”
In a piece republished here at ReligionUnplugged.com, Amy Erica Smith writes for The Conversation that “religion is shaping Brazil’s presidential election — but its evangelicals aren’t the same as America’s.”
CONTINUE READING: “ ‘Faith-Based FEMA’: Relief Organizations Mobilize To Help After Hurricane Ian“ by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.