Mission
Mission becomes a way of life when we reach out to people with the gospel, meeting needs in our own neighborhoods and cities and through global partnerships. Full Partnership-in-Mission shares for 2009 and 2010 are $6000.For more information email kbogerd@rca.org. To find out how to contact all Global Mission staff, click here.
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Donations
Donations to the RCA and its mission programs should be sent to: Reformed Church in America, PO Box 19381, Newark, NJ 07195-1938. Checks should be made out to "Reformed Church in America" and the fund to which the money is designated should be noted on the memo line.
Christ in Context: Pilgrimages to the Holy Land
Join RCA pastor
Marlin and Sally Vis
on a pilgrimage
experience in the Holy
Land, visiting holy
sites and gaining a
better understanding of
the current political
situation in
Israel/Palestine.
Rebuilding in Port Bolivar, Texas
Bruce and Laurie Hawley, mutual mission facilitators for the RCA, will be spending the next two months in Port Bolivar, Texas, which was devastated by Hurricane Ike in fall 2008. They will be facilitating the work of mission teams from various RCA churches.
Getting Started in Bolivar Peninsula
We've moved again, but it is so easy with our home on wheels! We are down in Texas on the Bolivar Peninsula, where Hurricane Ike came blasting through in the early morning hours of September 13, 2008. Port Bolivar is just a ferry ride across the channel into Galveston Bay from Galveston, Texas.  The only other way onto the Bolivar Peninsula is to take I-10 south across the Intercoastal Waterway to High Island and onto a narrow strip of land on the Gulf of Mexico that is barely above sea level.
Ike was a huge storm, and the storm surge it produced was over 20 feet above normal sea level. I can't stand on the roof of our truck and be more than 15 feet above sea level anywhere out here, which means that when Ike hit, the whole peninsula was covered with water. The wind blew, and there were tornadoes in the hurricane. More than 20 people died on the Bolivar Peninsula. It was devastating.
There were 6,500 homes here, but after Ike was finished, people could only move back into 180 of them. The homes left standing were newer homes, built to comply with stricter hurricane codes--they were way up off the ground on stilts. Anything underneath them was washed away. The first row of homes along the beach was completely gone. All of a sudden, the second row of homes had become beachfront property, until others rebuild.
We've been hearing stories about people's experiences during the storm. During the flood, the postmistress' husband floated on a plank 15 miles across Galveston Bay. Another man was swept out of his bed in water so high that he caught hold of a traffic light until the wires cut loose; he then clung to the top of a tree that he floated by until he was rescued. (We were told that he was stark naked when rescued!) It was a terrifying storm--and when people returned, nothing was the way it had been when they evacuated. It was awful. The mucking out, clearing beaches, tearing down, and rebuilding began quickly, but it is still happening and will be for many years.
The RCA is here helping our local partner through this process. We will have teams of around 20 people here for eight weeks. Our first week was a resounding success. The team from Meredith Drive Reformed Church in Des Moines, Iowa, came with servant hearts, compassionate souls, and willing hands. Most outstanding were the relationships that were begun. Friendships and love grew within the group as they got to know one another on a much deeper level. The increased level of trust and of confiding soul-to-soul was evident. We prayed for each other and for those we served.
We had the opportunity to visit with several people in the community. We heard testimonies of faith, stories of heartache and loss, and the frustration of struggles with agencies and insurance companies before any rebuilding work could begin. But everyone we met was so grateful that we came; they couldn't thank us enough for caring enough to make the trip. It feels like hope is in the air when someone cares enough to come away from their home and help.
Posted 01/29/10
Additional Mission Stories
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