We would like to introduce you to baby Schwartz – due to grace the world with his or her presence somewhere around September:
Baby Schwartz at .8 cm
In the upper left side of the black oval in the middle of the picture, you will see baby Schwartz – whose heart beat of 146 bpm we heard today.
We are incredibly thankful for this wonderful gift of God’s mercy and grace!
Hey Friends -
Galveston still has not seen a penny of federal disaster relief money almost 18 months after Hurricane Ike. It is still caught up in the bureaucracy. The latest fight is in the Texas legislature about how to distribute the money. Instead of alloting more money to the counties that were most affected, the legislature is wanting to distribute it evenly around the state. That means that a county in north Texas that had a couple of roofs blown off in the storm would get similar funding to Galveston County. Crazy and illological – but it is an election year. Here is guest column in the Galveston Daily News from two members of our organization explaining the complaint we have with the system:
By Joe Compian and Barbara Crews
Special to The Daily News
This week, the Texas Department of Rural Affairs will resubmit its plan for spending $3 billion in federal disaster funding to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HUD rejected the first draft of this plan in November because of numerous problems, which we and others vigorously pointed out to TDRA and HUD at several public hearings.
We are pleased to say the current TDRA plan is considerably better than the previous version with one glaring exception: The state continues to embrace a funding model that is based on “estimated damages” derived from weather maps rather than on the actual “unmet needs” of communities.
One improvement is that the state makes permanent the 50-50 split between housing and nonhousing funding in each region. This means about $1.5 billion statewide must be used to help people elevate, rehabilitate and even totally rebuild their storm-damaged homes.
Our local elected officials wisely agreed with our proposal that an even greater amount, 60 percent of all federal funds, be dedicated to housing restoration. About $486 million in Galveston and Galveston County would be used for housing restoration.
If any city or county can’t use their funds as allocated, then other jurisdictions in that region will have the first shot at using those funds for housing. If no jurisdiction in the region can use the funds for that purpose, then those funds will be returned to the state for “reallocation … to regions that have the greatest level of unmet needs.”
The ongoing outreach efforts of the city and county, social service organizations and all the great volunteers who are walking door to door to encourage people to sign up are critical. We either use the funding for housing or lose that funding to areas that are better able to encourage families to sign up and able to help them qualify for assistance.
The big upside for our community is that if we document our tremendous “unmet need,” we have the opportunity to gain substantial funding from communities to which the state has allocated hundreds of millions but that suffered relatively little damage.
According to HUD, Galveston County has more than $820 million in housing “unmet need” and $260 million is needed for economic development to help small businesses recover.
This unmet need of more than $1 billion for housing and economic development in Galveston County makes it all the more inexplicable that the state of Texas would persist in using “estimated damages” based on the weather to grant more than $104 million to a pool of inland counties has less than one-half of 1 percent of the unmet need or more than $240 million to Deep East Texas, which has only 2.3 percent of the unmet need.
TDRA seems to be entirely deaf to analysis and arguments offered by ourselves, many elected officials and residents in this region.
One can only wonder why.
We must continue to urge HUD push the state of Texas to distribute these funds based on the need, not the weather.
Joe Compian is a member of Gulf Coast Interfaith and Barbara Crews is a member of Galveston County Restore and Rebuild.
We have a number of trips coming to Galveston in the spring:
1. Amanda Shaner and Betsy McGeorge, two friends from our Pughtown days, are due to come down this coming week. That is dependent on the weather on the east coast….their flight has already been delayed one day….
2. Friends from our MS mission trips are coming down in March – the Smalls family. You may remember back in August when Zach Smalls and his friend Jett came to stay and work with us. We are looking forward to this trip because the Smalls family usually dresses alike. They are bringing some friends with them from Florida…can you imagine 11 people working together and dressed alike…there are possibilities there!
3. There is a church from Connecticut who is coming down in April – they made the connection through the American Baptist Volunteers in Mission office.
4. There is going to be a follow up trip to the ABCOPAD trip a couple of weeks ago – the dates are April 18-24. Here is a little blurb from the recent ABCOPAD newsletter and Rev. David Cox, who will be leading the trip: “”Do you want to get connected to God in a whole new way? Do you feel God is calling you to something but you are just not sure what it is? Do you have a heart for missions? Join me, and a team of people that have answered yes to one or more of the above questions, as we venture to Galveston, Texas, for disaster relief aid due to Hurricane Ike. It will be a trip that very possibly could be life changing as we serve our Lord and the people of Galveston. The work will be hard, as well as the cot we will sleep on, but the worship and ministry will be awesome! Consider it a week of fellowshipping with God while on a mission. I just returned with the first team and was inspired and blessed more than I could have imagined. Please consider being a part of the team April 18-24, 2010! ~Reach for the goal in Christ, Pastor David Cox the FBC of Greenville” The price of this trip is going to be around $450. For more info, go to www.abcopad.org.
Sermon: “What to do with Judas”
Text: Acts 1:12-26
To listen, click here:
To download, click here: What to do with Judas 1-31-10
The other half of the Ohio team is working at Joe and Gloria’s and are doing a great job of finishing a lot of things. They have been working on all the electrical issues, installing light fixtures and fans. They are also installing cabinets, the hot water heater, and fixing closets.
On Wednesday, Joe and Gloria served the volunteers (including the group working at Primera) a wonderful lunch. One of Joe’s sons came over and made fajita chicken and beef on a charcoal grill, and Gloria made the rest for fajitas and beans. It was a great meal as always; Gloria’s a good cook! 
Joe, Gloria, and their family really appreciate all the help from the volunteers and are so hospitable, always sharing what they have with others.
Cutting bifold doors to fit
Delivering the hot water heater
Pastor Wayne and his electrical work
Preparing to hang cabinets
Working on the electrical for the ceiling fan
Measuring for cabinets
Ron and Joe the homeowner
UMCOR has started working with volunteers from a few other organizations. The newest is the Disciples of Christ, the mission arm of the UCC church. This week a team from Disciples of Christ from Ohio has been working at Primera- mostly finishing up trim and laying tile floors. They are doing a great job! Check out the pictures! I am most impressed with the young woman cutting and laying the tile floor. She has no experience but is doing a great job.
Tiling the hallway
Completed hallway
Starting tile in the back office
Almost finished
Tiling the floor
Tons of painted trim
Ladies cutting trim
Here are some pictures of the beautiful work the group from Washington did at Primera. Looking even better! I’m sure there are more smaller things I didn’t get pictures of, but the painting sure looks great.
Women's bathroom stalls with white trim
Men's bathroom- finally painted
Pantry doors hung
Completed tile in back of sanctuary
Door in fellowship hall painted blue
Tuesday marked the one year anniversary of the day that Jenn and I pulled out of my mom’s driveway and started driving to Texas. It certainly seems like we have been down here for much longer. I have been taking some time this week to think of all of the people that we have encountered throughout the year – volunteers, homeowners, disaster recovery people, Galvestonians, tourists, homeless, etc. It has been quite a year! I feel like God has worked through us in many ways, but more than that God has done his work in us in beautiful ways as well. I will try and share some more thoughts about this in the next couple of days if I can.
Groundhog meatloaf
On the first day of our trip to Texas, we drove from Philadelphia to Harrisonburg, VA where we stayed with Scott and Shaena – friends of mine from college (the last 60 miles of the trip was through a snowstorm). They have a yearly ritual of celebrating Groundhog’s Day by shaping their meatloaf into the form of a groundhog. So, we decided that we would start a Galveston branch of the tradition and ate groundhog meatloaf ourselves. We invited Pastor Billy and Dawn over for dinner and shared in Jenn’s finely shaped groundhog meatloaf. This groundhog, unfortunately for it, didn’t not live long enough to see its shadow.
Betty Helpa - expert painter
Here are some more reflections from the PA mission group from two weeks ago. Betty Helpa shared some thoughts about the trip during the Sunday morning worship service at Grace Baptist Church in Blue Bell on January 31st:
