Pottstown's St. James Lutheran Helps Others

From David Garner:

Even having been there it is difficult to imagine what the residents felt when the water rose quickly and turned the road into a river and the parking lot into a waterfall. 

The neighborhood where we worked was approximately one mile from the community college pictured in the video and just up the street from the Verdunville church that was soliciting donations.

St. James Lutheran Church in Pottstown has been involved in mission work -- disaster and poverty relief -- since 1995 travelling to Georgia, North Dakota, Haiti, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Pennsylvania. 

The church has fund raising activities during the year, receives grants from Thrivent Financial Services and requires participants to contribute in order to have money to make at least one trip each year.

This year we drove to West Virginia from May 5 through May 12 to assist residents through the coordination of West Virginia Mission Advocacy and Work camps. Visit http://www.wvmaw.org/WVMAW/Home.html to learn more.

We stayed at the Hampden location which was 23 miles from where we worked.

Eleven members of our congregation made the trip and we worked on five different homes during the five-day work week. 

The host congregation organized six local volunteers who worked with us at various times during the week. 

All of the people we had contact with were appreciative. 

The hospitality we were shown was gracious and we really enjoyed the experience. 

Unfortunately the local folks feel as if the disaster has not received the attention -- both at the state and federal levels -- that was warranted due to the severe impact it has had on the 600-plus homes in Mud Fork.