Virginia team served in New York ... and more!

Photo: the St. Andrews volunteer team

"In August, seven people from St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Kilmarnock, VA, traveled to the western end of Long Island, NY, to help with post-Superstorm Sandy rebuilding. We worked in Far Rockaway and stayed in Jamaica at "Jamaica Village."  First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica provides sleeping accommodations, showers, and meals there.  On our way to Long Island we spent a night at the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury, NJ.  We saw some of the New Jersey shore destruction before seeing what Sandy had done in New York.  We enjoyed the sense of Presbyterian "connectionalism" as we interacted with these two congregations.

"The second photo shows an official road sign that our team passed each day, after work, as we drove out of Brooklyn into Queens. It didn't take long for us to be saying "Fuhgeddaboudit!" almost as well as a New Yorker.  This trip was St. Andrews' fifth PDA-related mission trip. We have been to Mississippi (twice), Louisiana, and Missouri."

The St. Andrews congregation has also built a shower trailer for volunteer work teams and prepared cleanup buckets, hygiene kits, and baby kits for those in need through the ecumenical CWS Gift of the Heart kits ministry. 

Sign photo thanks to Kyle Lorenzino.