The Green Shirts Get Special Anointing

CRWRC Newsroom | Oct. 15, 2008

When Christian Reformed World Relief Disaster Response Services workers went out to work on Monday morning to continue their clean-up work in the hurricane-devastated community of Bridge City, Texas, they left with a spiritual boost and renewed confidence that came from a special service they attended the day before.

On Sunday, Pastor Buddy Blake at St. John’s Lutheran Church welcomed all of “green shirts” – members of the Christian Reformed World Relief Disaster Response Services team – who were sitting in the pews of his small church. CRWRC relief workers wear special green shirts as they go about their work.

The CRC workers are headquartered in a former day care center run by Blake’s church. The church and large day-care center, transformed into a home for the workers from the CRC, is in Port Arthur, Texas, a few miles north of the Gulf of Mexico.

At the start of the service on Sunday, the Lutheran preacher explained that he was going to give the men and women who are members of the CRCNA a special anointing to bless their ears, eyes, hands and feet as a way to ask God to be with them in the work that they will be doing this week in helping to clean up after Hurricane Ike.

Although Port Arthur suffered damage from last month’s hurricane, it was the neighboring town of Bridge City that sustained much of the damage from the large storm that swept ashore and affected a large portion of the eastern Gulf Coast of Texas, and in the process substantially impacted the city of Galveston which is right on the water.

“I come here this week to announce we may be bent, but we are not broken,” said Blake. “We are here to praise our Lord Jesus Christ … I’m also here to welcome the green shirts. I love to anoint each and every one of them. We are grateful that these people have come so far from their homes to help us down here.”

One DRS team has already worked in and around Bridge City, where of the more than 3,000 homes only a handful were not damaged by Ike. They have cut trees from roofs, helped to haul sea mud from the inside of homes, and have helped prepare the water-logged homes for reconstruction crews. This is an area that was also hit by Hurricane Rita in 2005. The second disaster relief team is now at work in Bridge City. Several CRWRC reconstruction crews have been working here for the last three years, rebuilding scores of homes.

“We’re here to help the people who are really in need. They don’t have insurance and it’s hard for them to get help from someone else,” said Doug Van Der Meulen, one of the CRWRC emergency response workers. He and his wife, Mary, arrived right after Ike hit and helped coordinate the response from the CRWRC.

“There are a lot of people with a lot of loss down here, but things keep moving along. Garbage is getting picked up. Houses are getting cleaned out,” said Van Der Meuelen, who was on hand for the church service.

During Sunday’s service, Pastor Blake had the green shirts gather in the front of the church and, calling each person by name, proceeded to do the anointing. “Our eyes need to come off this disaster and we need to put them on God,” said the pastor after he did the anointing.

To the CRWRC workers, he said, “You will touch people in ways you won’t believe. People around here will be telling the story of the green shirts for a long time,” he said.

“They first came down here after Rita. They have helped us conquer the spirit of depression that comes with disasters. So much these days seems so negative, but God, but God is with us. Don’t discount what can happen when the people and God work together for the good.”

Donations towards the DRS response to
Hurricane Ike should be designated: 
Hurricanes 2008 US

-- Chris Meehan, CRC Communications