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Our Oklahoma home

Our Oklahoma Home

While staying in OKC, the plan is to be housed at Hilltop Baptist Church/
They have converted part of their church into housing for volunteers such as us.
We’ll have cots and laundry facilities, so yes, it’ll be a familar set-up for us, maybe even more than it’ll be familiar to our hosts.
They were kind enough to send us some preview photos.

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Here’s the OKC Scout team

Here’s the OKC Scout team

 A ministry of Evergreen Baptist Church of San Gabriel Valley
Working with Central Oklahoma Habitat for Humanity

April 27 – May 4

Click here if you would like to support us.
The Tornado Outbreak of May 20, 2013
A tornado outbreak occurred during the afternoon and evening hours of May 20, 2013 and was the last day of a three-day stretch of significant severe weather. This event also produced the most deadly and devastating tornado of the year for Oklahoma and the United States.
Several supercell thunderstorms developed during the early afternoon of May 20th along a dryline in central Oklahoma. One of these storms developed near Chickasha and rapidly intensified, producing a tornado which touched down at 2:56 PM CDT on the west side of Newcastle. The tornado became violent within minutes, then tracked east-northeastward across the city of Moore and parts of south Oklahoma City for about 40 minutes before finally dissipating near Lake Stanley Draper. The tornado caused catastrophic damage in these areas, and was given a maximum rating of EF-5. The tornado claimed 23 lives, injured scores of people, and caused billions of dollars in damage. – National Weather Service
On the heels of seven blessed trips to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the Lord has called us for a different relief effort in 2014.  This year, a scout team of 12 men and women will be sent to Central Oklahoma with the purpose of assessing the feasibility of sending future relief teams to the area.  Our goals will be 1) to establish relationships with local churches and relief organizations and 2) to share the love of Jesus with those affected by the devastation by partnering with Central Oklahoma Habitat for Humanity to do whatever construction or refurbishment work is needed.
God has selected this team of men and women who have served on prior year’s teams and we are grateful to be able to serve again.  The team, however, recognizes that this trip is made possible by people who stand beside us and support us through prayer, encouragement, and financial contributions (we will need about $10,000 to defray the cost of this trip for the entire team).
If God is calling you to support us, please consider our prayer requests:  (1) unity among the team members so we can work cooperatively together, as well as with the Habitat for Humanity staff; (2) safe travel to and from the Oklahoma City area, as well as safe travels while we are serving there; (3) protection from injury and illness while working at the construction sites; (4) protection for our families while we are away; (5) good weather that is conducive to working at the construction tasks we are assigned; (6) the building of close relationships with potential partner agencies and churches, and (6) most of all, that God would provide opportunities for us to grow in faith in Him and to share that faith with others we encounter.
If God lays it on your heart to support us financially, we will gladly accept it for use in God’s service, but note that our greatest desire is for your prayers.  Thank you for giving us this opportunity to share with you our desire to have your partnership in this endeavor.
In His service,
Chris Chan, Kelly Chan, Art Fong, Pam Fong, Jeff Han, Craig Kakihara, Peter Lau, Lorin Lew, Millie Liao, Gary Murakami, Steve Ogata, Tommy Yamada
Members of the Evergreen SGV 2014 Oklahoma Relief Scout Team

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New destination, same goal

Oklahoma City here we come!

2013 marked the official end of our trips to Biloxi, MS, but our hearts are always with them. Members of our team have facebooked, communicated and visited Mississipi, and we have made heartfelt friends from our experience in Habitat.

But 9 years after Hurricane Katrina’s destruction hit the shores of the Gulf Coast, we have decided to turn our attention to another region of the US, Tornado Alley.

2013 saw the impact of tornado destruction in Moore, OK, only a few miles from downtown Oklahoma City (OKC) We will be sending an exploratory team to investigate building relationships with faith-based relief providers to this region.

Since this will be our first trip to the region, we will be taking “veterans” of previous relief trips to help prayerfully evaluate our opportunities to serve.

Is our goal specifically to serve tornado victims? 
No, not exclusively. Our goal is to serve God by serving people wherever He calls.

While we are responding to the recent tornado activity, we will serve in whatever way we can to help. We take with us our heart, skills and available time and look forward to what’s next.

Moore and More
Currently we are scheduled to partner once again with the local Habitat for Humanity and possibly will be working on their Rebuild Moore and More efforts. But just like most any service project, no one will know what we’ll be doing until we’re practically there. But that’s okay, we’ve got a flexible team.

When?
We are scheduled to travel near the end of April, beginning of May for one week of service.

We’ll have more information available, and if you’d like to receive an information/support letter, feel free to email us directly, but we’ll have it available in the coming weeks.

Who’s going?
A final team list will be available soon, but it is a co-ed team comprised of past team members.

More information?
Fortunately/coincidentally/providentially, we’ll be serving with Habitat for Humanity in OKC this year, but regardless of what organization(s) we work with, we’ll keep the info at this blog site, http://sgvhabitat.blogspot.com

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Katrina 2013 Final Presentation Video is up!

Katrina 2013 Final Presentation Video

Was it a dream? Were you really experiencing the presentation? or were you just taking a nap? Or maybe you weren’t able to join us…

Relive the Full Presentation in this video, featuring sharing from team members Craig Kakihara, Heang Chov, and Steve Ogata and a multimedia presentation by Gary Murakami, this presentation reflected on God’s goodness, favor, and blessing on this year’s team and the homeowners we encountered.

The Katrina Gulf Coast Relief
Team for 2013 gave a final presentation to family, friends, and
supporters on June 9, 2013 

By the way, it’s kind of an Easter Egg/ hidden treasure (of sorts), but there’s a segment in the video that Gary made for the presentation that features some worship/singing during the photo/video montage. When listening to it, it sounded like a normal recording, but oddly familiar.

Gary had taken a recording of our team’s worship time (our own singing) and mixed it with an instrumental-track of the same song. This meant matching keys, pitch, and even splicing our voices so it matched the timing of the original professional track. 

I have to applaud Gary’s technical, artistic and creative efforts. I’m sure he would say it is a labor of love, (some would say obsession), but all kidding aside, I’m both impressed and touched by the effort…



Katrina 2013 Final Presentation from SGV Habitat on Vimeo.

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Bittersweet weekend

Our Presentation
This weekend, we’re having our Mission presentation at church, of which you’re all welcome. We know we’ll have plenty of video and posts in the next few days for those of you that are unable to attend.

It’s Sunday (June 9th) at 1230 at the church..

Ron
Unfortunately, it’s also the weekend that we lay to rest our friend and brother, Ron Nakamura

A man with a big voice, big laugh and big heart, he is singing with Jesus at this moment. Of the many things in his life, including his marriage to Janis and raising two daughters, Ron also joined our team to work in Pascagoula, MS

After his trip, he continued correspondence with our site supervisors Brad and Denise, stretching the friendship over the years and miles. In fact, when we’ve met up with either of them, Ron’s name would come up in the first few minutes.

Over the life of our mission, we’ve lost two brothers and team members, first our leader from our very first trip, Dennis, and this week, Ron. It was an honor to serve with such good men.

There’s much that has and will be said about Ron, but we want to thank God for allowing him to travel to Mississippi with us and experience His Grace by working and greeting people in Christ’s name.

And we thank God for the opportunity to spend that special week with him, Blessed to be a blessing.

Here’s a post that Ron wrote upon returning from Mississippi
http://sgvhabitat.blogspot.com/2011/06/notes-from-ron-n-blessed-to-be-blessing.html

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2013 Brad’s MLK speech

Brad doing his MLK for us one (last?) time on our last night in Mississippi, and thanks Gary for enhancing with the musical accompaniment..

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We were mentioned in the recent HFHMGC May 2013 Newsletter

Evergreen 2013

Last weekend was Mother’s Day and at Habitat that is a reason for celebration because of our Women Build event.  You’ll read below about the success of the event and you’ll see why we have reason to applaud.

We’ve got lots of other reasons to celebrate as well.  Our affiliate, our staff and even a Board member has all been recognized recently for their good work with a variety of awards.  To say we are excited about the awards is an understatement.

Continuing this message of celebration, I would like to recognize the Evergreen Church volunteers.  This group recently completed a week of volunteering with HFHMGC.  For the past seven years, this group has traveled from Los Angeles to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to work alongside our staff and AmeriCorps members.  We thank them for their commitment to Habitat and we celebrate their tireless efforts in rebuilding the Gulf Coast