The water rose as high as 8 feet around the mobile home where Juanita Gomez lives with her daughters Jasmin and Yesenia and their puppy Bella. Juanita recounted, "our appliances nearly rose to the ceiling." During the middle of the night of the third day of the rain, Juanita and her daughters had no other choice but to hop in a neighbor’s truck and flee. They returned home to a nightmare, but with nowhere else to go they've been living there since the flooding. Mold is growing throughout the home and mosquitoes have invaded. Juanita showed us the small room where she and the girls are sleeping - they had lined the walls with a yellow tarp, trying to create some barrier between them and the mold. "Yes, that's where we are sleeping." On top of it all, they haven't had water service since the storm and their electricity had just been turned off because they were unable to pay. Juanita needed help to get her family safe. So, that's what we did on Day 275. First thing was … [Read more...] about Helping Juanita

This year’s devastating hurricane season on the southern coast of the U.S. has left ARC teams wondering how we might respond. While our focus is normally outside the United States, our connection to disenfranchised people reaches our own shores as well. So, on Day 273 we sent a team to Houston, Texas to see how we could help communities still recovering from Hurricane Harvey. One of the first things our team encountered was that people still don't know what is happening or what steps they should take - especially Spanish-speakers. In northeast Houston - where our team is working - FEMA hasn't been able to reach the families whose homes were damaged or flooded in the storm. As a result, the families have been in limbo, not knowing what they should do to make their homes safe or prepare for the next steps of recovery. So, on Day 273, we wanted to help people out of the darkness and empower them with information they critically need. So we translated some critical FEMA documents … [Read more...] about Speaking My Language