Preston Hollow Presbyterian combines service with prayer
Neither donations nor prayer would be enough.
So, Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church included service as a key component as the congregation gathered in response to the Texas Hill Country flooding disaster.
“The main idea is not only to get people to help donate towards the relief, but to be a part of it as well,” said Katherine Pawlowski, communications specialist for the church.
“During this time, so many people in our community have been affected by what has happened on July Fourth,” she said. “The idea of being a part of it and doing something is a way to heal as a community together while also helping the people who were first-handedly affected.”
The Evening of Service and Prayer drew a full house on July 10.
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“We have two or three children who had gone to Camp Mystic last summer,” Pawlowski said. “Luckily none of them were there when the flooding happened. We’d just like to make sure they know this is a time for healing, and they’ll still be able to have their happy memories from when they were there.”
Members young and old gathered at 4:30 p.m. to fill buckets with supplies — care packages bound for the flood recovery zone — before sharing a meal together and moving to the chapel for worship and prayer.
“They’re packing cleaning supplies — trash bags, gloves, sponges, soap, clothing hangars,” Pawlowski said. “We also have hygiene kits — toothbrush, deodorant, combs, nail clippers — just things to help people survive during the next few weeks.”
In addition to assembling and transporting care packages, the church is also collecting donations for the cause and had already raised $15,000.
“We’re hoping to raise more,” Pawlowski said. “And if we raise more than the supplies we’ve bought, then that will all go to a different relief fund.”
After the assembling of the orange Home Depot buckets of hygiene kits and cleaning kits, volunteers shared a meal from Chick-fil-A before joining in worship led by the senior pastor.
“Today, we’re offering the community an opportunity to come together and to unite in our shared grief over the floods in the Hill Country, but to also come together and respond with love in a time when we all need one another,” the Rev. Matthew Ruffner said.
“As part of our worship tonight, we’re going to honor those lives that have been lost. Every person I know in the church community has one degree of separation,” he said.
“We have some young people who were at Camp Mystic who had just returned from session one,” Ruffner said. “We have a young adult who is a counselor at a neighboring camp, and they were on break. Every person in our community knows a family or has someone in their kids’ school who has been affected. We have folks here who grew up going to some of these camps. And we have folks like a child of this church who is now a Presbyterian minister was down there with his family. And they’re still down there. They were stranded and are picking up the pieces.”
