November 18 2002

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Jill Lee, a 30-something homeschooling mom, spends her days teaching her children and cleaning her home. She also reads manuals about biological and chemical weapons to prepare for a terrorist attack. In addition to being a mom and wife, Lee is the founder and leader of Nehemiah's Watchmen (www.orgsites.com/md/watchmen), a CERT team in her hometown of Port Deposit, Maryland.

CERT stands for Community Emergency Response Team, volunteers who do search and rescue work and assess immediate needs in any community emergency, often as first responders. In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush called for tripling the number of CERT-trained volunteers in the United States in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Nehemiah's Watchmen is the first cert team in Maryland, one of only twelve in the Mid-Atlantic, and the only church-based team in that region.

The group's mission statement quotes 2 Kings 11:6, calling for God's people to "keep watch of the house that it be not broken down." Their purpose is to stand up for the cause of Christ, to be used in the event of future disasters, to be a testimony to others while working alongside them, to serve others, and to be a comfort to those personally affected by disaster. "Who better to do search and rescue than God's people?" Lee asks.

The Los Angeles Fire Department developed the cert concept in 1985 to help meet relief needs after earthquakes. Fire officials saw that neighbors were trying to help each other but were sometimes getting injured or killed in the process. With proper training, officials reasoned, the risks would be curtailed. As cert spread nationwide, it was adapted to each geographical location so workers were trained for disasters most relevant ...