May 11th – Wednesday

So, since Sunday at noon, we have logged over 650 miles delivering meals and donated items to survivors of the Tornadoes of April 27^th all around Birmingham & Tuscaloosa. It has been so humbling to serve these people and their positive attitude and thankfulness for what they are receiving has been inspiring.

Early in the day, there was a call from Ft. Payne to the Christian Service Mission hotline. This is a small town that had been virtually overlooked and forgotten except by the residents of the community. Apparently, there had been two subdivisions of home wiped out and the survivors were gathering in a local campground to get water, food, and shelter.  It was going to be 90+ minute one-way trip so everyone was trying to figure out how many trucks to send to get them the supplies they needed in the most timely fashion. As we started talking about filling pickup trucks and sending multiple folks, it just seemed obvious to me to use a big box truck. Since there were none, Beth and I decided to use some of the donation funds from our friends and family to rent a big 17foot UHaul truck and just take everything in one trip. While we were out renting the truck, the pickers and packers went to work to stage everything that would need to go on the truck. Minutes later, we were back and packed to the gills to make the journey. 

3 teenagers helped us unload at their staging site and worked their butts off unpacking EVERYTHING that had been stuffed into that Uhaul truck. I think they were a bit dumb-struck when I opened the back door and they saw how much stuff we actually had for them.

We sat down last night and took at look where we had traveled on the map and we had almost hit the Georgia border…HA

Thursday will bring more of the same as I rented the Uhaul  for 2 days so we could really make some impact. We loaded 2 pallets of donations from Austin, TX. into it last night at the end of the day and will load more into it in the morning. All of this will go directly to Tuscaloosa so we will be headed back to University of Alabama again.

Again, thanks for following us and our progress and most importantly for your support with donated items and money. It is ALL going to good use down here as we try to be the best stewards of what we have been entrusted with. Love you all and God Bless!!!