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In 1996 I was on the staff of the Central Pennsylvania Conference of The United Methodist Church when the Susquehanna River flooded its banks in a fierce and destructive way.

I spent a week in a small town in central Pennsylvania where more than 60 homes and 50 mobile homes had been buried under six-feet or more of water.

UMCOR responded quickly. What impressed me the most is that UMCOR didn’t come into town and set up its own office and operations; it brought resources and volunteers to support the work that the townspeople had already begun.

Basing its work out of the local United Methodist church, a dozen teams shoveled mud out of people’s homes. Other volunteers prepared hot healthy meals for the teams. The church provided flood buckets, bottled water and meals to everyone who needed them.

Other volunteers surveyed from door to door finding out who needed help and the kind of help they needed. Because they could say they were with the church, they were not received as outsiders but neighbors.

Trained volunteers cared for the children of the community, many of whom had lost their pets to
drowning. They supported the pastor who was providing pastoral care to a family who lost their parents when their car stalled and was covered by the flood, to the friends of a 37-year-old woman who was swept off of the roof of her trailer and drowned, to the parents of eight-year-old boy who slipped on the ice that was everywhere and died in an auto accident.

Prayer and comfort were a central and natural part of UMCOR’s ministry.

What I learned is that it makes a big difference when a relief organization is able to stand along side the people of a community to support their recovery.

Because almost every town throughout much of the world has a local Methodist church, UMCOR is uniquely situated to provide the kind of presence and support it provided in central Pennsylvania in 1996.

I know that UMCOR will do whatever it needs to do to help the people of Haiti. I am also confident that, whenever possible, it will do it along side the Methodist people of Haiti and their neighbors, not as outsiders but as neighbors.

Because I have seen UMCOR at work, I send them my dollars confident that they will make a real difference.

The Rev. Dean Snyder is pastor of Foundry UMC in Washington, D.C.