By Leslie Wilson, Living Stones News Staff

Washburn’s Grace Bible Fellowship spearheads effort to help hurricane victims

It was a beautiful, sunny first day of October as we set our baked goods on the table in front of the Ashland Wal-Mart. Nearby some of the very young ladies of Grace Bible Fellowship helped create the official Pack-a-Sack and Writing Center. This was not your usual fundraiser. For those of you who read our extra hurricane Katrina pieces on the www.livingstonesnews.com Web site last month, you met Jill Rigby. This special lady, a member of First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge, La., has been working tirelessly to help the evacuees from New Orleans. Her special ministry is to the "children of the storm" as she calls them. Jill runs a nonprofit ministry that publishes a curriculum teaching respect called "Manners of the Heart." She also writes books and gives seminars around the country to children and adults, in schools and businesses on the need for mutual respect and politeness in all settings. She put her ministry to work in the many shelters that sprung up in Baton Rouge this last month. When our church heard about her need for funds to help provide emergency supplies not being met by the traditional rescue organizations, we decided to adopt her cause.

What we were not expecting was the personal e-mail communications between Grace Bible Fellowship and Jill:

"We continue to minister to the physical and spiritual needs. At the shelters of PRC Compassion over 750 evacuees accepted Christ this weekend. We have a worship service each morning at 9:00 with a special children's service in the afternoon at each shelter. To see faces darkened with despair turn to faces shining with hope is a blessing beyond words. God is in the midst of the suffering. Jesus as Savior has taken on an entirely new meaning for all of us in the aftermath of the storm. Please pray for a new beginning for all...We're praying that New Orleans will be rebuilt for God's glory, not man's indulgence. As the praise song says, "We want to see Jesus lifted high...a banner that flies across this land. That all men may see the truth and know...He is the way to heaven." Beside you in Christ, Jill Rigby

In the days that followed, she would send replies to each of our emails within the day. Replies filled with thanks and details of how our Wal-Mart gift certificates were used:

"We'll be visiting shelters this weekend, too. The recipients of the Bare Necessities have been most appreciative. An elderly lady said, ‘I can do without a clean shirt, but I have to have clean underpants.’ Little boys and girls that received ‘fancy’ undies with printed characters jumped up and down. Most had never owned a pair of character undies. We truly live in a bubble, don't we? The things we take for granted mean the world to a child growing up in poverty."

Jill would tell us of the progress the children of the storm were making:

"I just got in from our ‘Carnival of Hope,’ sponsored by First Presbyterian, Healing Place Church and Abounding Love Ministries at the River Center. We cooked 3,000 hot dogs and 2,000 hamburgers. We cranked out praise and worship music to draw the lost out of their dark prison into the light of day. The children ran to our stage with smiles and shouts of joy. Children became children again. Makeshift sleds made from cardboard boxes allowed the kids to ‘fly’ down the steep hill from the levee. (For our Northern friends reading this...this is closest it gets to sledding for our kids!) We had games, puppet shows, face painting, sidewalk chalk art...and more. In the midst of it all, the sweet aroma of Christ."

But the best opportunity to help hurricane survivors in a very personal way was through the special project Jill undertook:

"This is an opportunity for elementary school children to send notes of encouragement with Scripture to the children of the storm. You'll see the full instructions on the website. We've partnered with PRC Compassion (www.prccompassion.org) to distribute the ‘friend sacks’ to children in the shelters throughout the South. . . . We will be delivering "To My Friend" bags Friday to a shelter filled with children with the help of fifth graders from schools in a neighboring parish. We have collected hundreds of bags from children. Enough for this shelter, which is one of 200! We need thousands more!"

Grace Bible Fellowship took the "Pack-a-sack" idea and ran with it. Lunch sacks, labels, instructions, and ideas were passed out to our Sunday School classes. The following week our children brought in their sacks filled with items like school, arts & crafts supplies, hair accessories, toiletries, and other much needed or just plain fun items. Also in each was a "letter to my friend" and a self-addressed, stamped envelope with a blank piece of stationery so the child receiving the gift could write back.

Jill Rigby set the ambitious goal of being able to bring a sack full of gifts to every child of the storm. If you know any child, any school, any church group who would like to brighten the life of a child who has lost so much and seen too much, you can get details by contacting me through Living Stones News or Jill's ministry:

Manners of the Heart Community Fund

info@mannersoftheheart.org

867 Highland Road #228
Baton Rouge, LA 70808

(225) 923-2881

Contributions are tax deductible.
Jill told us that there was a question that was asked repeatedly, "Jill, how do you know these folks in Wisconsin" Her reply, "They're part of my family and yours. We just haven't met yet, but one day we will."