Once again Mother Nature has dealt Southern Louisiana (this time around Baton Rouge) a deadly blow in the form of rain—6.9 trillion gallons of it. More than 30,000 people have been evacuated; more than 60,000 homes have been damaged; and at least 13 deaths have been reported. Some experts believe that the damage from this disaster will be equal to or greater than that of Hurricane Sandy. Many homeowners whose homes have been flooded do not have flood insurance because they live in an area that has never flooded before.

We look at our parched lawns, thankful that it is not us and wonder, how we can help? The Mission Committee has a suggestion for you. Make a donation to North Church, which we will forward to the Rhino Project of the St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church in New Orleans. Your donation will be used to fund the cleanup of flood-damaged homes. RHINO—the same group that sponsored the mission trips to Nola in which many of us participated and which are still going strong—is undertaking a project to collect cleaning supplies and volunteers to help clean out and rehabilitate damaged homes. As of Friday, August 19, they had identified 55 houses ready for work and collected enough cleaning supplies to send volunteer crews. According to its Facebook page, they worked on three homes in a neighborhood that looked like Williamsville except that the street was piled high with damaged furniture and wallboard. They cleaned out the mud and removed wallboard up to the high water mark. The houses now look like Habitat rehabs. Future work groups will go out as they are assembled and supplies are available.

The Mission Committee has sent $500. You can join them by writing a check to NPC with “Flood Relief” on the Memo Line and sending it to the church (300 N. Forest Rd., Williamsville, NY 14221) by Tuesday, September 6th. OR even better you could use the rest of your vacation to go to Baton Rouge and help. (Ann Eisenlord can tell you how to do this.) Let’s see if the congregation can at least match the $500 we are sending as a church. And finally please pray for the victims of the flooding and those who are working to help them.