We sat around the dinner table at our favorite restaurant. Average age, 60. Varying degrees of less than perfect health. All with the same thought, “We can’t not do this.” “We HAVE TO go.” But…..

“Who will take care of the grandkids while we are gone.”
“Who will tend to my ailing parent.”
“If I don’t work, I don’t get paid..”
“Do you really think that we can still do this at our age?”
“I don’t know if I can get the time off..”

 

But….
“Someone has to go – we have to go…..”

We had seen the preliminary video, heard the plans. The Heritage Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America was building a base camp, Camp Hope, on vacant land in Gulfport, Mississippi, an area hard-hit by hurricane Katrina. The plan was to hook up trailers, or tents, and work out of the camp to help repair and rebuild homes devastated by Katrina and so minister to the lives of our brothers and sisters in Mississippi.

One by one, God removed the obstacles.

A sitter found. A sister able to take over. Friends, brothers and sisters, children, who couldn’t go, sponsoring those who could go. A couple of RVs loaded down with food, donated supplies, and workers, plus a truck and utility trailer for everyone’s tools… God was making a way…

Just go.

We saw the same television broadcasts seen worldwide but nothing prepared us for the miles and miles of debris, rubble, destruction… Everywhere, a different kind of mess waiting…two months post Katrina and it will still take hundreds of trucks to remove the debris. Streets filled with moldy mattresses, ruined appliances, water soaked furniture, intertwined with mangled tree branches, shingles, trash. Billboards and business signs blown apart. Street signs gone. Cars that will never run again, strewn along roadways… and the smell…rotting, mildewing, decaying…Silence reigns in our cars because there are no words…

After a tour of the area, reality hits hard again as we worship together on Sunday morning with the PEOPLE. This is all about people - our brothers and sisters in the faith. Their lives have been wiped out. For many their homes are unlivable. Everywhere they look they see the same mess day after day. Their friends and neighbors have died. Relatives have suffered great loss. Their jobs are gone. Their town is unrecognizable. Many of the stores and businesses are still closed. Their church building is in ruins.

Yet, their worship is beautiful, hopeful, trusting. They have been working to put their own lives back together, helping and encouraging one another, and singing of God’s Amazing Grace, and the Church’s ONE Foundation, reminding one another of their primary calling…. Lift High the Cross…. Til all the world doth know…. And their church is growing. Amid the chaos, God is working in and through them. These people - their faces, their lives, their stories – will remain with us forever…. And we are energized to give all of our strength to their need.

Day after day, God gave renewed strength and determination.

Little things:

Supplies appeared. One day we need paint supplies at our assigned location, where we had been dropped off with no transportation until dinnertime. We didn’t bring painting supplies because they weren’t needed… but then they were needed. “Lord, we need supplies.” We walked out the front door and looked up the street. A paint store within walking distance with everything we needed…. And then another one across the street… just in case… abundant supplies. Another needed job skill surfaces… “Can anyone here fix this?” Someone knows how. These aren’t the right parts for the drop ceiling … but we make them work. “Have you ever done this?” No, but we’ll figure it out. Back at the camp, one of our women finds that not only her cooking skills, but her organizational bent is put to great use, as she sets to work on her laptop putting everything in order so that the next group of women coming in to take over will know just what to do. Another inventories the supply room and then volunteers to spend her days scrubbing the entire men’s room and showers at the camp… and does so cheerfully. One long day leads into the next.

Bigger things: Each morning we awaken, painfully aware of the aging flesh in which we are currently living. Someone has to lift our foot so that we can slide it into our jeans one more time…. And who will tie our shoes…. But we remember “why” and ask God for another day of “how” and take one step at a time. We walk into the dining tent, and our body commiserates with the other tired folks, forcing ourselves to stand up. Another cup of coffee. By the time the sun is up, we’re off for the day. God has renewed our strength, and impassioned our hearts with the motivation to do more… until the end of the work day, when we don’t want to stop working and we can’t leave the jobsite until we do “just one more thing” because we can’t leave them like this….

Great things: We discover yet again the wonderful, mystical, incomprehensible way that God makes one body from many peoples. That fellow believer, man or woman, whom we just met - as we speak, we feel in our hearts that we have known them from forever past, because the Christ in them and the Christ in us ignites an immediate, invincible fellowship of faith and love. The guys from Virginia…the retired worker from Canada… the young girl from California who wandered into the camp, just wanting to help... the locals. That woman who lost her family heirlooms, or her pictures, or even her sewing machine… they are close family now. We begin to understand the importance of little things, and we know that we won’t have to try to remember them because God has written them on our hearts. WE laugh with them and cry with them. We hug them. We listen. We learn. We know that we will go back, “Missions” will never mean the same thing again. We will never forget because it is something God has done in you.

When we come back home, we want to tell everyone you meet. “LOOK here, SEE the need, please help! They need you to come. They need you to talk to them and listen to their stories. They need you to understand. They need you to bring whatever skills and whatever energy you have and let God use you to bless them. They need you to give. If you’ve already given, they need you to give again! They need you to help them reach out to their neighbors. Signs are posted on each home where the volunteers are working, and when the neighbors say, “Will these people help ME, too?” They want to say, “yes!” Will you help them?

Most of all they say, “Please do not forget us.”

Are you willing to be used of God to minister to other believers? Just go. Everything you need is provided for at Camp Hope. Someone will tell you what to do. God will provide whatever you need to get there, and continue to provide along the way. Just ask Him, and go. Go to Gulfport* or Biloxi or Florida or Texas or wherever your brother is in need . Ask God if he is talking to YOU. Don’t be afraid that you are too old, or too tired, or not well-trained enough. Just listen to see if God is calling you. Then just go. God will do the rest. If you go, you will never be the same.

*For more information on this project, click here to view the video! You can also email Gorton Marsden at : gjmarsden@earthlink.net