Puerto Rican young adults to assist hurricane victims
9/29/1998 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York by United Methodist News Service A group of Methodist young adults in Puerto Rico will travel to an isolated area of the island on Oct. 3 to work with children traumatized by Hurricane Georges.
The young adults had been trained earlier by the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) to deal with such a disaster, according to Lettie LaFontaine, a United Methodist Communications staff person from Nashville, Tenn. LaFontaine was in Puerto Rico to assist UMCOR in gathering information.
They will journey to Mamewes, a small town in Jayuya, a region deep in the mountains, which was hit by a tornado spawned by the hurricane. Two hundred families - including 15 Methodist families - lost everything, LaFontaine said.
Residents there were isolated for days. They suffered such trauma from the disaster that when Methodist Bishop Juan Vera-Mendez arrived "the pastor just embraced the bishop and started crying," she added.
Another area hit hard by Hurricane Georges, LaFontaine reported, was Arecibo in the northeast, which has the highest concentration of Methodists on the island. Fifteen families from one congregation there also lost everything.
Preliminary reports show that 25 to 30 percent of the Methodist churches in Puerto Rico suffered some sort of hurricane-related damage, with at least 12 churches suffering major damage.
The Methodist Church of Puerto Rico is continuing to work with the UMCOR, which has sent an initial $10,000 grant, and with the ecumenical community there to organize relief efforts. The bishop is president of Puerto Rico's Evangelical Council of Churches, which represents about 100,000 Protestants on the island.
As of Sept. 29, the Methodist Church was operating seven different centers on the island where people could pick up food, water and other relief-related supplies. Church officials also were in conversation with the government on the possibility of opening three transitional housing shelters for hurricane victims after the current temporary shelters in the island's schools were closed.
Donations to assist the hurricane victims can be made to UMCOR Disaster Response No. 982515-0, earmarked "Hurricanes '98," and placed in church collection plates or mailed to 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115.
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