Title: Texas Disciple to coordinate Honduras relief efforts
Date: March 26, 1999
Disciples News Service
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Contact: news@cm.disciples.org
99b-19
INDIANAPOLIS (DNS) -- A Granbury, Texas, man has been appointed by Church World Service to oversee hurricane relief efforts in Honduras.
Don Tatlock will work with the Christian Commission for Development in Honduras as co-coordinator of the Hurricane Mitch mission team. He begins the new assignment in late June and will be based in Tegucigalpa.
Tatlock, whose parents were Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) missionaries, has led numerous work trips to Honduras. The Disciples member is a student at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas.
Week of Compassion, the church's disaster relief ministry, has received more than $700,000 for long-term assistance in Central America following Hurricane Mitch. This amount nearly triples the $250,000 WOC officials estimated would be needed to fulfill emergency requests, according to the Rev. Johnny Wray, Week of Compassion director.
From those funds, a $55,000 grant to Interchurch Medical Assistance helped to provide more than $1.6 million in vaccines, antibiotics and other medicines. A $75,000 Church World Service grant funded two shipments of humanitarian aid valued more than $750,000. WOC resources also enabled CCD to purchase two four-wheel-drive vehicles, allowing staff to reach remote communities in need of their services.
Disciples interested in volunteer work in Honduras or Nicaragua, where hurricane relief efforts also are taking place, should contact Glenn Rogers, a CWS Hurricane Mitch work team coordinator based at the Sager-Brown Center in Louisiana; phone: 888-283-6113. Work groups interested in assisting Disciples partner churches -- the Evangelical and Reformed Church in Honduras and the Christian Mission in Nicaragua -- should contact the Rev. David Vargas, DOM executive for Latin America and Caribbean at 317-635-3100.
WOC and Homeland Ministries' Volunteers in Mission program are sponsoring a leader training work trip to the region in August, according to Wray. Week of Compassion also is providing $1,000 partner grants to Disciples work groups. For applications, contact the WOC office at 317-635-3100, ext. 435, or send an electronic mail message to johnnywray@ecunet.org.
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