Between the middle of June and the middle of July over $60,000 was donated to the disaster relief fund in response to the tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma. This brought the total to over $90,000. Relief teams from Eastminster Presbyterian Church, Wichita, Kansas, New Creation Church, Joplin, Missouri, Kirk of the Hills and Kirk Crossing, Tulsa, Oklahoma have regularly visited to help out. Our goal is to distribute the relief funds as quickly as possible to Moore through our EPC churches serving there. To date, $45,000 has been distributed to Kirk of the Hills and Kirk Crossing as they assist a Moore church that has a special opportunity to serve the people in their community.
With the initial clean-up work from the tornado completed the focus is now on rebuilding the community. A major undertaking is getting the schools that were destroyed up and running for the coming school year. Emmaus Baptist Church is in the process of surrendering the majority of its church property to one of the schools that was destroyed, Briarwood Elementary. Our Tulsa churches are working with Emmaus to equip properly the church facility so that it can effectively serve as an elementary school (for 28 classes) in the 2013-2014 school year. Amy Hergenroether, Director of Mission and Outreach at Kirk of the Hills said of Emmaus, “Their commitment and sacrifice is huge and the Kirk has truly enjoyed working with them to bless the community they live in.” Amy added, “I have received over a dozen calls, and even more emails, from fellow EPC churches across the country offering their support: prayer, finances, supplies, and work teams have all been sincerely offered!”
You can contribute to contiuing disaster releif effors at http://www.epc.org/giving/emergency-relief/.