This evening we are really feeling the events of the past few days catching up to us. I told Beth early this morning that my emotions are sitting right at the surface and it wasn’t going to take much to get the water-works flowing. I know myself pretty well because they did.
Beth had gone into a WalMart to buy baby care items (food, sippy cups, formula, etc.) and outdoor extension cords that we needed to take to Tuscaloosa with us and I stayed in the truck just to make sure that the donations that we already had in the back remained intact. I was listening to a local radio station and they played a recorded call from a volunteer working who had been working in a trailer park that had been damaged and had a lot of people who were older, with special care needs, and some who were injured. This woman had received a call from her own family with a crisis that needed her attention and so she was leaving the people she had been assisting. She was obviously very emotional and didn’t want to leave / abandon these people so she was begging for help for them.
The radio DJ’s stopped her to tell her that the station had arranged for 3 nurses and a truckload of medical supplies to head to that particular trailer park and that those nurses had left to head there just 15 minutes prior to this woman’s phone call and plea for help. They asked if she believed in God, she answered yes between the tears that she was crying, and they stated, “Well, He answered your prayers before you even had a chance to pray them.” As the call came to a close, the DJ’s said that “they needed a MOMENT before they could continue.” Needless to say, this call affected them. Well, it affected me too so I had a nice little cry in the truck all by myself. I told Beth what had happened when she got back to the truck while we loaded
The cool thing today was the ability to bring together the 2 groups that we have been volunteering with while we have been down here. The one group in Birmingham collects and distributes donations while the group in Tuscaloosa feeds people and does donation collection and distribution on a very limited basis. We emailed with the main contact in Tuscaloosa last night to get a list of items needed and were able to fill our truck with items from the warehouse at Christian Mission Service in Birmingham this morning, and then take those items to Tuscaloosa. We used some of the money that our friends and family donated for our trip to buy some items at Walmart, that I mentioned above, that they didn’t have at the warehouse. Now the Tuscaloosa group, Disaster Assistance CoC, can make daily direct requests via email or phone or Facebook to Christian Mission Service and arrange for pickup of delivery of the items that they need. Neither group knew about the other prior to the contact that Beth and I made with each of them…obviously God put us right where we needed to be so we could help make greater impact for BOTH groups.
Enough for today’s update. Sorry for the rambling and the run-on sentences. Love to you all…God Bless!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment