Ways We Can Help Victims of Harvey
General Relief
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner established a Harvey relief fund at The Greater Houston Community Foundation. The organization connects donors with a network of nonprofits and innovative solutions in the social sector.
GlobalGiving, which calls itself the largest global crowdfunding community, has a goal of raising $2 million for its Harvey relief fund. Funds will be used first for immediate needs of food, water and shelter and then transition to long-term recovery efforts.
United Way of Greater Houston has launched a relief fund for storm-related needs and recovery. The organization says it already maintains a disaster relief fund but anticipates the needs of Harvey will far exceed those existing resources.
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy has also launched a Hurricane Harvey relief fund. The organization says its strategy emphasizes "investing well rather than investing quickly, addressing the greatest needs and gaps in funding that may be yet to emerge."
GoFundMe, the social fundraising site, has created a landing page that gathers the campaigns on its platform related to Harvey.
The Salvation Army says it is providing food and water to first responders and preparing for massive feeding efforts for residents.
Send Relief and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief says its teams began responding before Harvey made landfall and continues on-the-ground relief work.
Samaritan's Purse is accepting donations as well as volunteers for Harvey disaster relief for the coming months.
Blood
As well as the American Red Cross, local organizations accepting blood donations are Carter BloodCare and the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center.
Shelter
Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County coordinates the city's response to homelessness, serving as "a backbone organization" to groups that offer direct service. It has been providing updated information on shelters with available beds.
Airbnb has set up an urgent accommodations site, where people can open their homes to evacuees from the storm or find shelter themselves. Service fees are waived for those who check in by Sept. 1.
Food
A number of food banks will be aiding the affected region. Consider donating money instead of food, as it allows a food bank to use your donation most efficiently.
Feeding Texas is a statewide nonprofit that works alongside state and federal relief efforts. The organization says it steps in during major disasters to "coordinate with the state and other providers so that relief reaches families quickly and the 'second disaster' of an unorganized response is avoided."
Here is its list of food banks in Texas likely to be affected by Harvey:
Food Bank of the Golden Crescent (Victoria)
Southeast Texas Food Bank (Beaumont)
Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley (Pharr)
Brazos Valley Food Bank (Bryan)
Central Texas Food Bank (Austin)
People With Disabilities
Portlight Strategies facilitates projects involving people with disabilities, including post-disaster relief work. The organization says its hotline for Inclusive Disaster Strategies has received urgent requests from people in need.
Kids
The Texas Diaper Bank, based in San Antonio, works to meet the basic needs of vulnerable babies, children with disabilities, and seniors. It focuses on providing partner agencies with diapers and goods.
Animals
The SPCA of Texas is organizing evacuations of pets in Texas (including 123 cats from a shelter in Corpus Christi) and offers resources on pet-friendly housing for evacuees.
Austin Pets Alive! says it has transported more than 235 animals to its shelter. The organization seeks donations, as well as people who can adopt animals. It says it has received so many donated supplies that it's running out of storage space, so financial donations are what it needs most.
Resources found HERE
Hurricane Harvey & Our Response to Pray and Help
We’ve all been watching with concern these past few days as Hurricane Harvey ravages the countless communities and cities in South Texas. News reports continue to indicate that the storm’s heavy rainfall and subsequent flooding are unprecedented and exceeding expectations. According to ABC News, the United States government is responding through the deployment of 3,000 national and state guard service members, as well as 500 vehicles and 14 aircraft.
Although it is reassuring to see the ways government workers and officials are responding to the disaster, many still wonder: is there anything we can do to help? From far away, it is easy to feel powerless. Often, our immediate reaction is to try and find the nearest plane, train, or automobile, hitch a ride, and hope that our presence at the scene of the crisis will ultimately help serve those in need. Or, it is the exact opposite—we wring our hands and do nothing. But before you or anyone you know tries to go and singlehandedly rescue victims of Hurricane Harvey, or just sits anxiously watching the television, here are some practical ways you can help right now.
First, pray. As Christ followers, our first inclination in times of struggle and strife should be to fix our eyes not on the disaster itself, but on the God who promises His steady presence throughout it. When we find ourselves slipping into dangerous patterns of worry on behalf of those in need, prayer is our best and surest remedy.
We can get together with fellow believers and pray for the safety of victims and their families. We can ask God to stop the storm and cause the floodwaters to recede. We can allow the Lord to reorient our hearts and fill our minds with the truth of His promises. He is, after all, the One who can calm every storm whether off the coast of Texas or in our very hearts.
Second, start thinking about the next opportunity today, and make plans to become a trained volunteer. Before a natural disaster is even on the Weather Channel’s radar, we can begin the work involved in preparing for its coming. Becoming an informed, well-trained volunteer will help ensure a more effective, timely relief effort in the event of natural disaster.
Georgia Emergency Management Agency formed Praise and Preparedness to help church congregations prepare themselves and their communities for natural disasters. According to Janay Stargell, GEMA’s faith-based and non-governmental organization coordinator, communities often look for “churches to help respond” during times of recovery from a disaster. As Christ’s Church, this gives us an incredible opportunity to be His hands and feet when disaster strikes, both at home in our own communities and beyond. But it takes preparing before the moment of crisis. You may not be ready to help on the ground today, but you could be ready for the next time of desperate need.
Third, be well informed. Even for those prayerfully engaging from a distance, it can be surprising how valuable knowledge of the situation and the victims’ specific needs can be. Sending socks, winter parkas, and snow boots is a nice gesture for victims of a snowstorm, but it would do nothing to assist victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti or Hurricane Harvey today. That example is a bit silly, but it makes a point. There is always a way to find out the specific needs of a situation, and with all the communication today, it shouldn’t take you long to research. It’s a simple rule: before you try to help, make sure you know who you’re helping.
Last, consider donating. Even if you can’t go, you can help the relief workers and supplies get where they are most needed. In many cases, donations are just as effective as volunteer work. That being said, before writing the check or mailing the cash, it is important to find reputable, well-established relief agencies that are on the ground at the site of the disaster and ready to work. An arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, the North American Mission Board, promises donors that 100% of the donations they receive go directly to disaster relief efforts through their SEND Relief division. Groups like Convoy of Hope pride themselves on their rapid response times to ensure that victims get the help they need precisely when they need it. Also, consider other organizations that have good protocol during disaster relief times: Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Samaritan’s Purse, ReachGlobal (EFCA), and CAMA are just a few.
The One We Look To
Matthew 8 is a powerful example of what we are called to do when disasters are imminent and we feel out of control. We look to Jesus, the One who, by speaking a word, can calm all storms. We focus on Him, knowing that He is in control. And we do that by praying.
And then we follow Him into the disaster as He guides—whether through getting preparation for the next disaster or finding creative ways to help in the current crisis. Whatever He calls us to do, we can be sure of one thing: He isn’t calling us to do nothing. What we see on television impacts us whether we live in Texas or not. When one suffers, all suffer, and this can be the time when the Church shines the brightest.
Ed Stetzer holds the Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College, is Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center, and publishes church leadership resources through Mission Group.
Original article from Christianity Today
Blessings for the New School Year
When my kids were young, I loved taking them to pick out their new backpacks, school supplies, clothes and shoes for school. We would spend the day knocking it all out at once as we store hopped on a determined buying mission. We checked it all off our lists as we braved the trenches of school supply aisles in the local super center. We would be armed and ready for whatever the new school year would bring.
As the first day of school closed in on us, endless questions plagued my anxious mind. Would the kids like their new teachers? Would they get to be in the same classroom as their best buddies?
We would all have to get into a new routine, back to making those bagged lunches and after school snacks. There would be rides to practices, and piles of homework. Of course there would always be a few extra trips to the school to schlep the carelessly forgotten gear, lunches, and assignments.
These days the school supplies in my family have been replaced with apartment furnishings, car insurance and college text books.
There are many times I wish I could go back to the days of making those early morning waffles floating in maple syrup before school. Those days that seemed so rushed, stressed and hurried now are just cherished memories of a time I wish I could have back again. It has flown by so quickly and without my permission. They are suddenly grown and gone.
I realized that as we are reluctantly handing our kids over to new teachers, dorms, coaches, and even their own apartments, we can simultaneously hand them over to the complete, unchanging, infinite, protection of God!
He can and will be there to pick up the slack for us weary, anxious, parents. We can trust Him to always be there when we cannot. Whether our kids are coloring at the first grade art table or they are 500 miles away from us on a college campus, We can trust that our almighty God is watching over them and He will never leave them nor forsake them (see Hebrews13:5).
I like to start my mornings, coffee and Bible in hand, sitting on my back patio with my dog curled up next to me. It's where I have my morning prayer time with God. It is where I hand it all over, my concerns, fears and worries and ask Him to amazingly bless the days of my children. I ask for His ultimate protection over them. I visualize them covered in the full, securing, armor of God. I pray that His perfect will be done in their lives, and that they would make wise choices according to His word. I ask for His unceasing favor and noble grace to be upon them. I ask for Him to send a legion of His heavenly angels to surround my children continuously and to pluck them out of harms way. I pray for wonderful Christian friends and teachers to surround them. I visualize the mighty hand of God holding them up, so safe and protected, so strong, changeless and unfailing. Then as I continue on in my day, I know that my words will not return to me void (see Isaiah 55:11). I know God has heard me and if it is His will, He will honor my requests.
So as we begin this and all new school years and as we are diligently packing up the school gear, waking the kids up early, and sending them out the door, let's send them securely wrapped in the Lord's arms with an abundance of favor and blessings heaped upon them, dressed in their new shoes and of course in the full armor of God!!
By Nina Keegan, find the original article HERE
How to Embrace Rest When Work Never Ends
After every vacation, my husband inevitably returns to work buried in emails. Since he’s in sales he always has customers in need of his product, so while he might be on vacation from work, his customers are not. In an ever-connected digital age, work never stops.
My experience after a vacation is a little different. While I may not come home to an inbox full of emails, I return to another monstrosity—laundry. Maybe it’s my season of life (three kids younger than 3) or maybe it’s just the fact that there are five people in our house, but laundry is my overflowing inbox. Everything else takes a vacation when we are gone (the cleaning, the cooking, and so on), but the laundry just keeps coming. It sleeps for no one.
Whatever part of your work is overflowing when you end your vacation, we all face this dilemma, don’t we? What do we do with the work that never ends? Taking it a step further, can rest sometimes look like work?
Work vs. Play
Since work is a fluid part of my life, with no real beginning and end, a question keeps arising in my own mind, and maybe in yours as well: What’s the difference between rest and play? Is it resting to read a book to your child? Is it resting to eat dinner when you open your home for hospitality? It can be difficult to discern what’s work and what’s play when it all melds together.
But if work is about people, our rest is as well. Just as we’re tempted to view our work as done for our own glory, we’re tempted to view our rest the same way. I see this in my own life when I lament my lack of rest—by which I mean I haven’t had a break from my kids in a while. But I can rest while watching a show with them, playing soccer with them outside, or eating dinner with them. Sometimes rest is watching Netflix by myself, and sometimes it’s eating pizza in the living room with my kids.
As Kevin DeYoung observes, “Effective love is rarely efficient. People take time. Relationships are messy.” Anyone who spends any amount of time investing in people knows this to be true. DeYoung isn’t saying we don’t rest when our work involves people; he’s simply saying a people-oriented life might change the way our rest looks—or might make us even busier than we intended to be. He goes on to write, “Stewarding my time is not about selfishly pursuing only the things I like to do. It’s about effectively serving others in the ways I’m best able to serve and in the ways I am most uniquely called to serve.” I long assumed I can only rest when doing the things I want to do, the things I find restful. But rest is sometimes about enjoying my kids, enjoying the fruit of my labors.
We view rest and work as things that exist for us. But they don’t.
Rest as Neighbor Love
Marva Dawn, author of Keeping the Sabbath Wholly, says that this view of rest actually frees us to love people more, since we aren’t seeing them as a means to an end:
When we are not under the compulsion to be productive, we are given the time to dwell with others, to be with them and thereby to discover who they are.
Rest is about people as much as work is. People aren’t efficient, and can sometimes be draining, but they’re part of our Sabbath rest.
The church community must be our accountability here. We can serve our fellow believers in their quest for rest by helping with chores around their home, participating in a restful activity together, and even encouraging the weary to sleep. This is another reminder that, along with the work itself, the rest from it is a community effort. Left to ourselves, we would either be lazy or workaholics.
By embracing time in our Sabbath rest, we’re free to love others in our resting. Since we’re not bound to productivity or a schedule, people aren’t a hindrance to those things. Dawn notes that if we’re resting in God’s grace, we can fold others into that freedom also. When our kids interrupt us, but it doesn’t derail our day. When our neighbor needs help moving a piece of furniture, and we can joyfully serve. In our resting we’re not a slave to the clock. In Christ, we’re free to serve because he’s the Lord of the Sabbath. Dawn procceds to say that this ceasing opens us up for inefficient things like “sitting quietly together and enjoying each other’s company.” Without the demands of life and work, we aren’t blinded to the people in front of us. Rest gives us the chance to value the people for whom we labor every day.
While we might cease from work in our rest, we don’t cease from delight. Our resting makes way for feasting. And our ceasing makes way for embracing and loving others. Of course, this requires a shift in our thinking. Work and rest are about loving our neighbor. Work and rest are about worshiping God and enjoying the good things he has given us. Yes, balance is needed. Personality types and seasons of life determine how much individual rest we need. But it’s not all about our own personal gratification.
Sometimes our rest includes others (like playing with our children), and sometimes it’s just us. But it’s always about God.
Article by Courtney Reissig / Click here to read the original article
What Does it Really Mean to #Blessed?
Feeling blessed is in vogue.
A quick look at Facebook and Twitter shows how many people today feel #blessed. In our social-media world, saying you’re blessed can be a way of boasting while trying to sound humble.
College scholarship? #Blessed. Unexpected raise? #Blessed. Wonderful family? #Blessed.
As Christians we use that term too, of course. We pray God will bless our family. We attribute our undeserved gifts to “God’s blessings.” We talk about ministries being blessed. But what does it really mean? How should we understand the blessing of God?
The Good Life
For believers, is the blessed life synonymous with the successful life? Is it the Christian version of the good life? A loving marriage, obedient children, a vibrant ministry, a healthy body, a successful career, trusted friends, financial abundance — if these are the characteristics of a blessed life, then having all of them should translate into an extraordinarily blessed life.
But does it? If someone had all those things, would they be extraordinarily blessed?
Rather than turning to God, they might feel self-sufficient and proud. Perhaps a bit smug and self-righteous. After all, their hard work would be yielding good fruit.
Moreover, they wouldn’t need to cry out to God for deliverance; everything would already be perfect. They wouldn’t need to trust God; they could trust in themselves. They wouldn’t need God to fill them; they would already be satisfied.
God’s Richest Blessings
My desire for God is greatly fueled by my need. And it is in the areas of loss where I feel my need most intensely. Unmet desires keep me on my knees. Deepen my prayer life. Make me ransack the Bible for God’s promises.
Earthly blessings are temporary; they can all be taken away. Job’s blessings all disappeared in one fateful day. I, too, had a comfortable life that was stripped away within a span of weeks. My marriage dissolved. My children rebelled. My health spiraled downward. My family fell apart. My dreams were shattered.
And yet, in the midst of those painful events, I experienced God’s richest blessings. A stronger faith than I had experienced before. A deeper love than I had ever known. A more intimate walk than I could explain. My trials grounded my faith in ways that prosperity and abundance never could.
While my trials were not blessings in themselves, they were channels for them. As Laura Story asks in her song “Blessings,” “What if your blessings come through rain drops? What if trials of this life — the rain, the storms, the hardest nights — are your mercies in disguise?”
This revolutionary idea of blessing is also firmly established in Scripture.
The Common Thread
One translation of the New Testament (ESV) has 112 references with the words bless, blessing, or blessed, none of which connect blessing to material prosperity. Consider these passages:
“Suffering and trials are not blessings in themselves, but they are channels for God’s grace.”
“Blessed are the poor in spirit. . . . Blessed are those who mourn. . . . Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake . . . Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:3–4, 10–11)
“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28)
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. (Romans 4:7; quoting Psalm 32:1)
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. (James 1:12)
“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. . . . Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” (Revelation 14:13, 19:9)
There is no hint of material prosperity or perfect circumstances in any New Testament reference. On the contrary, blessing is typically connected with either poverty and trial or the spiritual benefits of being joined by faith to Jesus.
According to the Key-Word Study Bible, “The Greek word translated blessed in these passages is makarioi which means to be fully satisfied. It refers to those receiving God’s favor, regardless of the circumstances” (emphasis added).
What is blessing, then? Scripture shows that blessing is anything God gives that makes us fully satisfied in him. Anything that draws us closer to Jesus. Anything that helps us relinquish the temporal and hold on more tightly to the eternal. And often it is the struggles and trials, the aching disappointments and the unfulfilled longings that best enable us to do that.
Truly Blessed
“Unmet desires keep me on my knees and make me ransack the Bible for God’s promises.”
Pain and loss transform us. While they sometimes unravel us, they can also push us to a deeper life with God than we ever thought possible. They make us rest in God alone. Not what we can do or achieve for him. And not what he can do or achieve for us.
In pain and loss, we long for Presence. We long to know that God is for us and with us and in us. Great families, financial wealth, and good health are all wonderful gifts we can thank God for, but they are not his greatest blessings. They may make us delight, not in God, but in his gifts.
God’s greatest blessing always rests in God himself. When we have that, we are truly #blessed.
Article by Vaneetha Rendall Risner, a freelance writer and a regular contributor to Desiring God. Click HERE to read the original article.