Happy New Year! We pray for peace, good health and God’s rich blessings for you and your family as we travel into another year together. Thank you for your ongoing support of World Renew Disaster Response Services. Praise the Lord for one of the mildest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record in 2013. A mere 13 named-storms formed last year, and only two—Ingrid and Humberto—became hurricanes. Neither of these achieved category-three status or higher, and only Tropical Storm Andrea made landfall in the U.S.
Happy New Year!
We pray for peace, good health and God’s rich blessings for you and your family as we travel into another year together. Thank you for your ongoing support of World Renew Disaster Response Services. Praise the Lord for one of the mildest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record in 2013. A mere 13 named-storms formed last year, and only two—Ingrid and Humberto—became hurricanes. Neither of these achieved category-three status or higher, and only Tropical Storm Andrea made landfall in the U.S.
We pray that God will bless His world with peace, freedom from disasters, and an increasing knowledge and commitment to His will for all people.
"This unexpectedly low activity is linked to an unpredictable atmospheric pattern that prevented the growth of storms by producing exceptionally dry, sinking air and a strong vertical wind-shear in much of the main hurricane formation region, which spans the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea,” said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We thank God that He blessed us with these “unpredictable” atmospheric conditions. But we are also mindful of what happened in the Pacific last year. We pray for the people of the Philippines and for a mild Pacific storm season this year.
As you know, DRS Sunday in 2014 is scheduled for March 2 in US Christian Reformed churches. Your participation plays a big part in helping us meet our annual fundraising goals, so once again we’re asking all of our volunteers to get involved! Encourage your church to schedule an offering, help us arrange a speaker for your congregation, and plan on wearing your green shirt. Our Canadian churches are not included in the March 2 offering because of a scheduling conflict, but we ask our Canadian volunteers to also get your churches involved by planning a DRS Sunday observation date sometime in 2014.
Also, we have faithful volunteers who attend churches from other denominations, including Reformed Church of America, Lutheran, Presbyterian and others. Please consider talking to your church leadership about this great ministry that you’re involved in and how they can get involved in supporting your work and DRS by taking a special offering. We’ll be happy to arrange a speaker for your event. Give me a call!
Visit Green Shirts to order our all-new materials for DRS Sunday 2014, called “I AM Home.” There are bulletin covers, inserts, posters and a DVD. A PowerPoint presentation is also available for adult education classes at your church. Let me know how we can help you—and thank you again for your servant leadership!
As DRS prepares for our work in 2014, we pray that God will bless His world with peace, freedom from disasters, continuing economic recovery for the developed world, prosperity for the poor and an increasing knowledge and commitment to His will for all people. Each of us has a part in making that happen. I look forward to working together with you in the months ahead.
In His Service,
