Rain On a Hot Tin Roof: Music to Our Ears

Posted on June 09, 2008 by David McGee

Due to a severe wind storm in January 2008, many houses in the western part of El Salvador lost part or all of their roofs.

The churches in San Jose El Naranjo, Los Laureles, El Paraiso and San Antonio sought a way to provide help. The San Jose church, which has partnered with ENLACE the later 90’s lead the way in resolving the problem. They also saw this moment as an opportunity to walk alongside the churches working more recently with ENLACE, helping them to indentify the families most affected by the storm and work together with their community to resolve the situation.

After soliciting corrugated roofing material from ENLACE, the churches organized work teams from a variety of sources within their communities—including community associations, general volunteers and church volunteers. Together they installed 140 new roofs, providing 980 people with shelter.

The timing couldn’t be better. The first major tropical storm depression of the season brought five days of consistent rainfall two weeks after the roof installations were completed. Additionally, because of the way in which the churches walked with their communities to solve the problems they were facing, the project not only ended up filling a specific need but also strengthened the links of friendship between the churches and their communities.

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pastor marcos with recipient
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recipient family
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recipient family