Rebuild After Disasters

IT'S TIME TO REBUILD

If you need help rebuilding:
Texans on Mission connects you to help.

If you want to help rebuild:
Texans on Mission connects you with those in need.

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If your home or church has been damaged due to a natural disaster and you need help rebuilding, let us know. We will try to connect you with volunteers interested in helping people in your situation.

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If your church team wants to help victims of disaster rebuild, Texans on Mission can help you plan a specific project that caters to your abilities and availability. We help teams work in Texas and beyond.

We've been busy.

Here are some of the things we've been up to:

Hope rebuilt one tiny home at a time in Jamaica

After Hurricane Melissa brought widespread devastation to Jamaica in late October, many residents are facing ongoing hardship without stable housing or electricity.

Texans on Mission deployed immediately after the storm to provide initial relief. Months later, rebuild teams are still in the area providing an essential need — housing.

Nearly every home in impacted areas remains significantly damaged. People are sleeping in tents or on the ground outside. Communities are without electricity and their businesses have been destroyed.

Wendell Romans, who served as Incident Management Team leader for the first response with TXM, has been in Jamaica long-term to help residents move forward. He described how heavy it is to witness so much destruction and why it’s important for TXM to continue providing relief.

“When we meet them at what’s left of their home for the first time, it is emotional,” Romans said. “They are desperate and the needs are immense. A lot of tears are shed.

“They likely will continue living that way for months without help, and I don’t see many other groups helping them," he continued. “For many of these folks, Texans on Mission is their only hope for practical recovery. It’s incredibly difficult to walk away from this situation.”

In Montego Bay, TXM volunteers are repairing roofs and building tiny homes in a hotel parking lot. These tiny homes are then delivered to those in need, helping residents have a safe and dry place to call home probably for the first time since the storm. 

“If you look at the entire need, it can be overwhelming, but when you look at one need at a time and our response to that one need, the impact is significant,” said Doug Hall, who recently returned from a trip to Jamaica.

Since starting the tiny home builds, TXM volunteers have constructed over 52 tiny homes for those in need.

Each tiny home is 120 square feet. While that may seem small to some, the homes are big enough to house a whole family and help restore the feeling of stability.

“You don’t normally fly over homes and see into their living rooms and kitchens,” said Jacob Moneybrake, TXM associate director of disaster relief. “For them to have this damage, it means a lot that we’re coming in and helping them because the pride point of their culture is their homes. The fact that it has such an impact on them helps me understand even more the importance of being here.”

The new homes offer more than just a physical place to reside, if offers to restore hope that was lost in the devastation.

“Every person who serves here doesn’t want to leave,” Romans said. “When we provide help by roofing homes or building tiny houses, we’re giving people a hand up. We’re jumpstarting their recovery in a significant way. We give them hope for today.

“More than that, we’re introducing them to Christ, who gives them hope for eternity. This deployment is changing lives in mighty ways, including mine.”