Mike and I have our envelopes ready to mail our end-of-year ask, but when I saw the news this morning about the tornado damage in the Midwest, I pulled up TntMPD immediately.
Find Them
Going to the top of the screen to Lookup, I selected “by field” and scrolled down to “Mailing State”, selecting Illinois. Next, I clicked on “map” in the lower left corner. At the top of the map I selected “current group.” A map of Illinois came up with seventeen markers. Just outside of hard-hit Peoria, was a marker for one of our potential donors.If you use TntMPD this information is available to you without doing anything to “set it up.” I’ve used this feature in the past when disasters strike. [UPDATE: 05/01/2014: I created a video showing these steps.]
Google has a Crisis Response project. I haven’t seen anything yet on this site for yesterday’s powerful storms, but I’ll keep checking. When I find something, I’ll come back in and update this post. (Here’s a preliminary map of tornado sightings and here’s the crowd-sourced map for relief information for Typhoon Yolanda / Haiyan.)
I’m pulling this potential donor’s envelope from our end-of-year ask and sending a card in the mail this morning. We’re going to wait to send out our mailing for our end-of-year ask until I learn more about damage reports from Indiana, Ohio, and St. Louis.
Contact Them
It’s likely your friends may not have power and/or the time to respond on social media or to answer an eMail or a phone message. Depending on your relationship with them, you can try these, of course. You can try a letter expressing your concern and prayers, and hopefully, this will reach them. Determine the best and most meaningful way to contact them.
Minister to Them
Mike and I went through three hurricanes in a six-week period in 2004 and have a bit of first-hand knowledge about recovering from severe damage (but nothing as devastating as having a home obliterated!) Because of that experience, I have a few blog posts from my other two blogs and EveryStudent.com articles you may feel free to share to encourage your friends and family. Obviously, you may want to do more than communicate with them.
If they did suffer damage or loss, don’t forget them. It takes months, and even years, to recover from disasters.
Take some time to minister to your financial and prayer partners today!
Recommended articles:
- “Disastrophe” (MikeandSus.org)
- When We Lost Most of Our Roof to a Storm (MikeandSus.org)
- Putting an End to the Tragedies (The Sovereign)
- Where Is God in the Midst of Tragedy? (EveryStudent.com)
- Where Do We Go from Here? (EveryStudent.com)
eQuipping for eMinistry 