It has been a bit surprising to Malie Dela Cruz, she said, that more people aren’t taking advantage of Calvary Chapel Kauai’s offer of free labor from experienced team members. Some team members, who have experience helping residents clean up
It has been a bit surprising to Malie Dela Cruz, she said, that more people aren’t taking advantage of Calvary Chapel Kauai’s offer of free labor from experienced team members.
Some team members, who have experience helping residents clean up after Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi last year, have been working with flood victims on Wailapa Road in Kilauea, clearing away mud, restoring water lines, and removing carpeting and paneling from a flood-damaged home.
But they want to do more for more people.
Dela Cruz, Calvary Chapel Kauai’s office administrator, said some church members have taken off work this week to offer assistance to others, including doing yard work for disaster-response workers who have had to neglect yard work and being home with family members in order to respond to the flooding and aftermath.
They have been trying to encourage Kaua’i Fire Department, Kaua’i Police Department, Hawaii Army National Guard, Hawaii Air National Guard, state Department of Transportation, state Department of Land and Natural Resources, county Department of Public Works, county Department of Water, and other workers, to take their offers of respite help, she said.
While speaking with an American Red Cross volunteer recently, Dela Cruz said the volunteer offered that she has not been able to do any yard work because of her involvement in the storm-aftermath response, and initially politely declined Dela Cruz’s offer of team-member assistance to do the volunteer’s yard work.
She felt she wasn’t worthy of such attention, even though she has been working daily since the flooding of March 14.
It is just these overwhelmed, overworked people whom team members want to help, she said.
“This is exactly what we want to do, so you can go home and enjoy your family,” instead of having to worry about being somewhere else and doing something else for someone else, she said.
Even if it’s just to mow the lawn, they want to help, Dela Cruz added.
“We really just want to be a blessing.”
Pastor Bob Hallman offered the services last week via KQNG radio, saying, “We don’t want anything. We just want to be a blessing to Kaua’i.”
Hallman also announced that a prayer hotline has been established, where counselors pray with and for people who may be “anxious, grieving, overwhelmed.”
That number is 826-6733.
The number for free yard, home, respite, or other types of services that the Calvary Chapel Kauai team members might be able to offer, is 635-6833.
Finally, Dela Cruz said that, after having regular church services scheduled at the Kaua’i Village shopping center location in Waipouli because of lane and road closures on the Kapa’a bypass road, church leaders hope to have regularly-scheduled services Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 9 a.m. back at the bypass road church property this weekend.
