Monday, May 9th – Birmingham

Today we worked with the Christian Service Mission in Birmingham. They are very similar to our Matthew 25 Ministries in Cincinnati. They have a huge warehouse and manage the collection, sorting, and distribution of donations in Birmingham. They are a GREAT group of Christian Servants who have tirelessly been working since the day of the storms.

It was amazing how many donations they were dealing with on an ongoing basis. We were welcomed and then just dove in the deep end of the pool and paddled until we reached the surface.

After about an hour, I was finally able to meet up with the gentleman that I had been communicating with via email and cell phone, Mr. Hartwell Smith. He is one of the volunteers but is more of their overall project and needs manager.  When we sat down to introduce ourselves and talk about things, he asked, “Are all of you who are wearing the SHINE shirts from the same church group?” Of course I responded with, “By all of us, do you mean me and my wife? There are only two of us here wearing our Bright Christian Church SHINE shirts.” He replied, ”Well, for only two of you, I sure have seen a lot of that shirt moving around in here. You guys sure have been busy!!!”  I said, “We came to SERVE, not sit around!!!”

Within another hour, new volunteers were asking Beth and I what to do and who to talk to, like we had been there forever. You know how we both like to get in and start project managing things so we just tried our best to help the new folks out as best we could. We became fast friends with a lot of folks and spent time laughing, sweating, and of course crying with them.

Once they had sorted enough stuff, pickers started to come around to fill needs lists for surrounding communities and churches for distribution in outlying areas. Since we had a truck, we volunteered to load up and head out to meet folks face to face. It was awesome getting to interact with the folks at surrounding churches and get to love on some people and feel their gratitude and love in return. I’ve never blessed so many people and been blessed right back in such a short period of time. And all of them were just amazed that people from Indiana cared enough to send us and send donations along too.

Back at the warehouse we met many fellow Hoosiers…a fellow from Muncie working the grills to feed everyone lunch; a church group from Logansport, IN with a trailer full of donations; and even some people from Erlanger, KY. It was awesome and inspiring to see all of these Christians, from all over, in one place showing God’s love to so many in need.

We are headed back to Tuscaloosa tomorrow to server there again. Looking forward to it.

More later. Love to you all back in Indiana. God Bless!!!