PRAYER & COUNSELING
Prayer, comfort and counseling ranging from simple prayer and comfort to identifying more serious needs and referrals to trained counselors within your church or elsewhere. 

VOLUNTEER NEEDS:
  Multiple levels of people including those who can pray, comfort, and give spiritual counsel and those trained as Disaster Chaplains

TRAINING:

• The team leader and other chaplains need to learn what sound Christian services are available outside their church.

• Church lay people who have received basic training through their church to pray and give sound spiritual counsel should also receive training on the specific needs of people in crisis specifically related to large disasters such as hurricanes.  This should include how to identify those who need more in-depth help.

• Some volunteers should receive training on the specific needs of children in crisis.

VENUES:

• Volunteers need to accompany the post-hurricane Door-to-Door Assessment Teams.

• Prayer and counsel should be available at the church.

• Prayer tents can be set up outside the church or elsewhere on the street.

• Volunteers, who have received some training, need to be available to the ministry with children.

PERSONAL NOTES:
  In four hurricanes I had one person turn me down for prayer.  I also learned what can be accomplished in 1 to 3 minutes.  It only takes a couple of minutes to remind a woman, who has recently lost her husband, has no children, and has gone through the hurricane alone, that God has promised to be her husband and she can call on Him for all her needs.  I saw the light come on in her eyes as she said, AI never thought about it like that!
  It only takes a few minutes to show a volunteer, who feels guilty because she evacuated and experienced no loss, that she did exactly what she needed to and is now doing the perfect thing in helping others.  I saw the joy as she was set free and with a big grin threw her fists into the air and said, A YES!
  It only takes a minute or two to remind someone that God is there when everything else is destroyed.  It only takes a minute to pray a prayer with someone, or to turn someone=s eyes from the disaster to the answer and from the circumstances to Jesus.  It only takes a minute or two to let someone experience God's love.