Mission work can be many different things from helping people in distress, feeding hungry children around the world, teaching indigenous people how to farm, or spreading the Word and telling people about Jesus.  Why Puerto Rico, a lovely island in the Caribbean?

Rochester, NY – September 20, 2017 – Daily high temp: 79, Daily low temp: 51

Here is western New York as we enjoyed a lovely warm fall day, over 1800 miles to our southeast Puerto Rico was bracing for one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the island in years.  On September 20th, 2017 Puerto Rico was slammed by Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 hurricane that moved across the center of the island as an incredible extreme Category 4 hurricane.   Hurricane Maria blasted Puerto Rico for over 30 hours with sustained winds of 155 – 175 mph.  Homes and buildings were blown apart, roofs torn off, and the electrical infrastructure across the island was devastated.

A storm of this magnitude causing this much devastation would be difficult for the mainland to recover from.  For the island of Puerto Rico, recovery took on a new challenge.  Virtually every area of the island was affected.  Because the destruction and devastation was so widespread, the only place to turn for help was to the US (Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States).  Virtually everything needed for recovery had to be transported from the US mainland by ship to Puerto Rico.  Since harbors were damaged, some cargo had to be off-loaded onto smaller boats to be transferred to shore.  Just to rebuild the electrical grid required 50,000 utility poles and 6,500 miles of cable.  Each power pole is about 40 feet long and weighs over 1200 pounds (placing the poles end to end that would be 380 miles long weighing 30,000 tons).  It was reported that the “complexity (of rebuilding the electrical grid) results from the extent of destruction and the logistics involved in getting repair crews and equipment to the island.”

Criticism for Not Acting Sooner

There was a lot of criticism of the US for not acting immediately.  While it might take several weeks up to a few months to totally repair similar damage here in the US, it took many weeks to months just to get supplies to the island and many months more to repair and restore electrical service to portions of Puerto Rico.  Not only were supplies needed, but power trucks, pole trailers, and man power were brought in from the mainland to untangle, clean up the destruction and begin to rebuild the electric infrastructure.

Rebuilding structures has also been a slow go since building supplies also needed to be shipped from the mainland.  Cleanup was happening, but the shortage of building materials and the lengthy delays in getting these supplies to the island prolonged any recovery efforts.  Homes and businesses were destroyed or damaged, island infrastructure devastated, roads were impassable, forests uprooted,  and the lives of its residents left with massive destruction to clean up, then rebuild.

Our Mission

It has been over 16 months since Hurricane Maria and residents are still trying to rebuild their homes.  The United Methodist Church of Puerto Rico has invited sister churches in the US to send construction teams to help rebuild churches and homes.  The rebuild is coordinated by Methodist Church Puerto Rico who contacted pastors in the US extending an invitation to form teams of volunteers that would spend a week at a time on construction sites in Puerto Rico.  Construction is overseen by site engineers assuring that building protocol and codes are followed and could involve any type of cleanup and construction including foundation, walls, roofing, and finishing.

Twelve men and women from the United Methodist Church of Livonia, joined by several from the Homer United Methodist Church, Rush United Methodist Church, Lansing United Methodist Church and two from the Philadelphia, PA area will fly from Rochester to San Juan, Puerto Rico on January 19.  Each on the mission team felt the Lord’s call to use their unique construction, building, and finishing skills to bring help and hope to our brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico.  The team will be based at a camp near the city of Ponce on the south side of Puerto Rico.

As the departure date approaches, team members prepare physically and mentally for the yet to be determined work assignment.  Join the team by following posts on the church website (new posts listed under Pastor’s Blog right sidebar of the home page).  Most of all, please pray for the ministry of the team to those they will meet in Puerto Rico.