Three years ago Pastor Jeff Ungs, Director of Evangelical Mission of the Western Iowa Synod, brought a gift of 100 flood recovery buckets during flooding in Greene, Clarksville, and Shell Rock. This year, the Northeastern Iowa Synod returned the favor by giving flood buckets to help with clean-up from floods in Western Iowa.
Earlier this spring, the Northeastern Iowa Synod Disaster Response Network asked congregations to donate flood buckets to help replenish the supply available in this synod. Congregations from around the synod began filling buckets or donating money for supplies, including St. Peter, Toeterville; St. Peter, Greene; Big Canoe, Decorah; St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Waverly; and Zion, Oelwein.
Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Asbury already had a goal of donating 40 buckets to celebrate their 40th anniversary. However, instead of 40 the congregation donated 74.
Western Iowa requested a gift of 100 flood recovery buckets on April 3. Pastor Kyle Barton, Disaster Response Network facilitator, drove to Lord of Life and picked up those buckets and then to Grace Lutheran Church in Tripoli where the congregation maintains a cache of buckets. The Grace confirmation class took a break from their studies to form a “bucket brigade” to move the buckets from the basement to where they could be loaded.
On April 4, one day after Western Iowa’s request, Pastor Barton delivered more than 100 flood recovery buckets to the Western Iowa Synod Office.
Thank you to all the congregations that have mobilized to supply flood buckets. The danger of flooding isn’t over in this synod or in Western Iowa, so there is still need for buckets to be ready to go.
