Heading South

Well, I leave the day after tomorrow for Ocean Springs, Mississippi, along with a Hurricane Katrina relief group my brother's church, Bartlett Woods Church of Christ. I gotta tell you, I'm a bag of mixed emotions. I'm anxious to finally be doing something instead of sitting on my rear end, sending a PayPal donation and feeling bad for these folks. I'm also a bit scared -- about seeing all the devastation, the enormity of it, the smells, the heat, the humidity, the hard labor, the communal showers at the Y. This will all be an unusual, even pivotal experience for me. But I just feel it's something I have to do. I mostly "blame" my brother, Joe. He went to Ocean Springs with this same group last month. I was so proud of him, and so interested in hearing all about it when he returned. He said then that he would be going back -- perhaps more than once or twice. There is just so much that needs to be done.

I think the thing he said that really made me want to join him was the story of this retired man and his wife: He had been an artist of some type, and they had just moved to Ocean Springs a couple of years ago. This was their retirement home, a place near the beach where they were to live out their Golden Years in tranquility. As transplants, they didn't know many people there and didn't have family nearby. After spending a day stripping their house down to the bare concrete foundation and stud frame, my brother's group served the couple dinner at the Ocean Springs Church of Christ. As they were sitting down to eat, the man began to thank my brother and his fellow volunteers. "Before you all got here, we had given up," he said, "We had no hope." And with that he became overcome with emotion. He broke down and cried. His wife cried. My brother cried. Everyone just cried.

So I guess that's what compels me. The idea that I could restore hope to even one person who otherwise would have given up. But I know it won't be me doing the restoration, it will be Spirit of God within me. And isn't that an awesome thought: to be an instrument of God!

"For Christ's love compels us..." (II Corinthians 5:14)