An OPEN LETTER to Doug Anderson, Mercy Response-Vineyard USA Director
August 1, 2008
As we close in on the first six weeks of FLOOD RELIEF
EFFORTS here in Cedar Rapids, we
want to express to you, Phil Schissler, Jeff and Janell Hirschoff, and the entire Mercy Response-Vineyard USA Team the many THANK YOUS from all of us here at Vineyard Church
of Cedar Rapids.
As senior pastors, we can't imagine what the last six weeks
would have been like for us as a church body if the Mercy Response team had not
pulled into Cedar Rapids on Friday
night, June 20th. Since then, we as a church community have
experienced one miracle after another as we have joined hands with Mercy
Response in responding to the human suffering caused by the Floods of 2008.
Just to refresh your memory, on June 13th, 2008 Cedar
Rapids was hit with massive flooding from the Cedar
River. The river, which normally runs at an average of 7 feet in
depth, rolled over its' banks to a record 31.12 feet, flooding 1,300 city
blocks (including our downtown business area) and inundating 9 square miles of
our city. 5,390 homes and over 1,000 businesses were flooded, with over 25,000
people evacuated from their residences. Other major communities such as
Waterloo/Cedar Falls, Iowa City,
and countless other smaller farm communities were hit as well in what has been
called the worst natural disaster in Iowa
history.
We, as a church family, were actively involved in the days
prior to the flood, helping people to prepare for and to evacuate their
homes before the deluge hit. While our church facility was far outside
the flood zone,
we did have 15 of our church's families directly affected by the
disaster. Our
primary goal in the first few days after the flood was to check with
those
families, assess damages, and assist them in any way we could to
connect with
local emergency shelters.
When the Mercy Response team arrived on June 20th, they were
tired and worn out from the long haul from New Orleans
to Cedar Rapids. Yet despite their
weariness, Phil and his team still wanted to survey some of the heaviest hit
neighborhoods and began even that evening planning out the flood relief
strategy that has now become Camp Vineyard.
While the last six weeks has been the busiest summer our
staff and church family have ever had (normally summer in the Midwest is a
time to relax and play while church programming takes a breather), we've been
totally blessed to work alongside the Mercy Response team as we've sent out
500+ volunteers from Camp Vineyard into 36+ flood-affected homes. See details
at www.crvineyard.org/flood2008.kt.
As we said earlier, we can not imagine how different our
flood-relief efforts would have been if Mercy Response had not rolled into Cedar
Rapids. In our own strength, we would have been
fortunate to have cleaned up and gutted only a hand-full of homes. With the
experienced MR team here from New Orleans
combined with the equipment and resources they have brought with them, VCCR has
had the fortunate opportunity to be at the fore-front of the flood recovery
effort here in Cedar Rapids.
By Labor Day, we hope to have completed the clean-up and
gutting process and begin to move into the next phase of the flood-recovery
effort. As God leads, we look forward to teaming with Vineyard-USA, Mercy
Response, and other flood-relief organizations in continued efforts toward rebuilding
and restoring our community back to life and vibrancy.
As we move from the flood relief efforts to the rebuilding
and recovery phase, we've spelled out our long term vision at www.crvineyard.org/windowofopportunity.kt. We've also given Phil (on his latest trip to Cedar Rapids)
a Power Point presentation we are using to share our story and cast our vision
for the work still ahead. Thank you again to Vineyard-USA and the entire Mercy
Response team.
In His service...
Senior Pastors Marty & Sandy Boller
Vineyard Church of Cedar Rapids
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