The “ Hermandad ” (Brotherhood) program was created to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Many lost their houses, belongings, and even family members. As they return to severely damaged sectors of New Orleans and its suburbs they can't find food, water, or open stores

Our project provides them with basic necessities. Our location, the Verbo Church in Kenner , a suburb of the New Orleans , is particularly strategic for the area's Hispanic population. After the hurricane passed and we saw that God had protected the building, we decided to extend relief to the Hispanic and Afro-American community. We are now providing groceries, personal hygiene articles, children's food, water, juices, ice, etc.

The project counts on the support of "LACAL," the Latin American Civic Association of Louisiana, the Kenner mayor's office (which appointed us the sole distribution center for the Hispanic population) and the International Red Cross. We started the project on September 18 by preparing nine tents to shelter the goods to be distributed. The following day we began handing out different types of food and other goods to the community.

In the first week of the project we distributed an average of 400 food packages per day and 600 rations of hot meals that the Red Cross provided for the lunch and supper. Meanwhile, other churches and ministries are collaborating with us to reach out to the Katrina victims. Members of our congregation are donating their time and love to this effort though they themselves are also disaster victims who have come back to flooded houses, or lost their belongings and jobs. To God's glory their love and commitment to help others are stronger than their personal pain.

In the first week of operation the mayor's office supplied us with the goods for the distribution center. Now the federal government's disaster relief arm, FEMA, is providing water and ice and other organizations are beginning to help. Various Vineyard churches, Benny Hinn International Ministries and other groups are generously providing truckloads of food and water. For example, a church in Redwood City , CA , sent a truckload of food and water.

In the middle of all this work the New Orleans and her suburbs had to be evacuated again because of Hurricane Rita. We were unable to distribute anything on September 16 and 17. The good news is that Rita did not cause damages to our distribution center.

In addition to providing foodstuffs, we also set up a legal forum with lawyers, who answered questions about the civil rights and about governmental and charity organizations that provide catastrophe aid. We will repeat this forum in early October. Simultaneously we are covering the spiritual necessities of the victims and the many volunteers from other cities who are helping in the aid programs. We share the Gospel with them as opportunities permit, and for those who receive Christ, we are going to initiate an accelerated Alpha Course. This program was originally developed by Nicky Gumbel in England . We will offer the studies two days per week after sharing a supper.

The Alpha Course offers simple but pertinent topics like: Who is Jesus and why did he die? How to study the Bible? Who is the Holy Spirit, what does he do? We hope to use this course to reach a group 80 young people with whom we've come in contact though our relief efforts..