Random Writing of the Day

Project 50

This is a follow-up blog on Mission Katrina primarily aimed at residents of San Antonio and its vicinity.

Vision Forum is currently working with Christian leaders in Louisiana to identify families in special need of housing assistance, and to provide them with shelter for one week to two months with Christian families (and in some cases, local hotels) in the San Antonio vicinity. Our goal is to be available to provide fifty families with food, water, clothing, supplies and shelter. We are hoping to have these items available for the families when and if they arrive here. Those who want to contribute canned food (nothing perishable please), clothing and supplies for distribution to these families, may bring them to our national headquarters on Blanco Road where the goods will be stockpiled for distribution purposes to these families. For more information about dropping off supplies, please contact pcoghlan@visionforum.com.

Mission Katrina

It is simply a microscopically small effort in the grand scheme of what is being done, and what must be done, but today Vision Forum begins our mission to offer some relief and assistance to those friends of our ministry who have been devastated by the fury of Katrina.

Gathering until well after midnight last night, the men of Vision Forum strategized about the most effective means for getting thousands of dollars in supplies to friends in the body of Christ desperately in need of help. Our task included numerous calls (for information gathering purposes) to friends and family of those in Louisiana without food, water and supplies.

In the providence of God, Vision Forum has been blessed with a number of friends in the aviation business including military chopper pilots and airline pilots. During the course of the evening we talked with some of them inquiring for information on how we could get clearance to fly a chopper into the disaster zone where our friends live. We discovered that, given the martial law status and national guard presence, we would have to wade through a great deal of red tape to get clearance for a chopper flight, so we abandoned that plan in favor of a caravan of four-wheel drive diesels trucks. After getting official reports and eye witness testimonies about some of the major road routes, we determined that it will be possible to reach our destinations. Next it was determined that one of the diesel trucks would simply be a fuel car. (We need to carry at least 750 gallons between us to get down, help the people and get back.)

The team leaves today. Please pray for them. Vision Forum’s Mission Katrina involves the following:

1. An initial search, reconnaissance and supply delivery trip into parts of the disaster zone where there are identified Christian families in need of help. The information gathered on this trip will help us in preparing follow-up supply caravans to be sent into the zone in the days to come.

2. Support for sister ministries which are on location and ministering to those in need of help. Specifically, I want to encourage you to support, for example, the work of Operation Save America, which is trucking in shipments to more than 300 indigent families at a Christian conference retreat center. Here is the link. http://www.operationsaveamerica.org/

3. Help place indigent families in need in temporary housing arrangements with other families in San Antonio.

4. Special resource allocation from Vision Forum Ministries’ Life and Liberty Relief Fund.

Please pray for the first wave of efforts which begin today. Pray for the safety and success of our team of men. Please pray also for the safety and blessing of God on the “household of faith” suffering with everyone else in the wake of the worst physical disaster in our country in a century.