Ministry In Florida

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Hurricane Ian was a large and destructive Category 4 Atlantic hurricane that was the deadliest hurricane to strike the state of Florida since the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. Ian caused widespread damage across western Cuba and the southeast United States, especially the states of Florida and South Carolina. It was the ninth named storm, fourth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season.

Ian caused catastrophic damage with losses estimated to be over $50 billion. Much of the damage was from flooding brought about by a storm surge of 10–15 ft (3.0–4.6 m).[8] The cities of Fort Myers Beach and Naples were particularly hard hit. Millions were left without power in the storm's wake, and numerous inhabitants were forced to take refuge on their roofs. Sanibel Island and Pine Island were hardest hit by the storm surge, which destroyed numerous structures and damaged both the Sanibel Causeway and the bridge to Pine Island.  (Wikipedia)

Forging Strategic Partnerships : The Lord initially led us to Fort Myers via a request from the Executive Director of Disaster Relief for Inspiritus to come and help. For now our partners are Inspiritus, Mission on Wheels - Texas, Anthem Church - Fort Myers, Adventures in Missions - Fort Myers, and the Greater Pine Island Alliance.

Types of Work : It appears that initially we will limit our role to reconstituting the storage container work that we began in Waveland. It is early so we really have no idea how many storage containers we will build.  As many as the Lord will allow and provide for is the simple answer. Eventually I expect that we will be rebuilding homes to a sanitary, safe and secure condition. How many - God knows.  

Typically what we think we would be doing is only the tip of the iceberg.  For now, it appears that we will be building the shed components at Anthem Church with the assistance on local volunteers and Inspiritus.  The assembly of the sheds will be accomplished currently by two Disaster Relief Partners - Adventures in Missions working on homes in Harlem Heights in Fort Myers and the Greater Pine Island Alliance (GPIA) on Pine Island. 

Our work in Florida ended the end of July 2023 and we have returned to Texas. Pathfinder built and delivered 50 sheds before transferring the mission to the GPIA. We provided materials and components to build an additional 10 sheds. Using local volunteers, they intend to build 100 more sheds before the end of 2023. We provided plans, diagrams, written procedures and videos to help them. Of course we will be available to provide advice as needed.