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Community

Hampton Church Sponsors Disaster Training

Inspired by the response of fellow Lutherans to a tornado last year in the Quad Cities, a church in Hampton will host a day of disaster training on Saturday. 

Pastor Gary Wright, at Zion Lutheran Church, says after the tornado last spring, his church was used as a staging area for first responders, then hosted members of LERT, the Lutheran Early Response Team, from several midwest states.

And what impressed him the most was the "personal care" they provided.

"Recognizing the signs of grief and depression. A lot of time people just needed to talk and when they need to talk you stop working. I learned you really can't be so focused on the end product, bringing order to chaos, but you just need to sit down with people and talk."

Wright says that convinced him to host disaster training for his congregation, and anyone else interested. 

"Our goal is to help with the cleanup and then of course always as Christians, we look for ways to recognize some of the things people are going through, the grief and what have you, and respond accordingly with the Gospel."

He says after a tornado destroyed the central Illinois town of Washington a couple of years ago, LERT volunteers returned to the community every weekend for a year to help. 

(Zion Lutheran Church, 17628 Hubbard Road, pastorwright@mchsi.com)

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.