Help Is On The Way

No doubt, help is on the way. The flood of emails and calls and comments has left me just speechless. The generosity of the Christian spirit is so alive in the church today! The extent of this tragedy just leaves one speechless ... numb. It truly seems impossible to stage a 'come back' from this. On a personal note, today we gutted about half of my house. The other half will be Monday. Tomorrow we will have to rest. Were it not for the amazing brothers at the Gateway church of Christ in Pensacola, FL, I would be sitting on my porch not knowing what to do. Money given to organizations is good, but not best. Please direct all financial contributions to them at: Gateway Church of Christ 245 Brent Lane Pensacola, FL 32503 (earmark it for Pascagoula, if you wish - or whichever congregation you would like to give to. A contribution not earmarked will likely be distributed based upon need.) So many have asked me, "What do you need?" So, I will begin making lists here ... updating them as information changes. I can only speak for the Pascagoula area in this blog ... others have drastically different needs. IMMEDIATE NEEDS *Manpower. Debris lines our streets. People are clearing wet moldy carpets from their houses. Some without any assistance. Yards are littered with limbs, sometimes downed trees. There is no subsitute for manpower in these times. *We need to get our church back up and running. Our building is waterlogged. We need to remove carpet, floor tiling, appliances, pews. We do not currently have power, so this is a daunting task. At this point, all of our members are saturated with work at their homes. I believe if we could have services tomorrow, people would come. *We have groups coming in this coming weekend from Conyers, GA, Louisville, KY, Pensacola, Fl, and possibly Lake Charles, LA. This small army of voluteers will help get some of our members homes cleared out, debris in the neighborhood, and get our church building operational again. They will bring tents and food ... as we have no accomodations. NEEDS FOR WHEN OUR BUILDING IS CLEARED *Once our building is cleared, we can begin to form an area for storing and sharing materials, food, water, limited clothing, and having worship services. I hope to offer a daily chapel as well for our neighborhood. I would even love for groups to come and do work in the neighborhoods, inviting people to daily chapel in the early evening. *Once our building is cleared we will need plastic tables (hard plastic, sturdy) and chairs for use at both worship times and for feeding people. We have nothing like this at the time. At some point we will need to recover our floor. I am going to suggest that we use lamiant (sp?) instead of carpet. Also, we have a curved floor (theater style), and I would like for it to be flat. Any concrete workers out there? *No doubt it will be some time before flooring and order is back in place at Central. I would like to borrow the use of a nice camper / small moveable trailer that can be used as a temporary office / staging area / communications center. *I am in need of replacing a flooded car (and my daughter as well has to replace her car). Any reputable Christian car dealers who can help us? We will have some insurance money ... at some point. *When our building is clear we can begin accepting material donations ... I will list those at that time ... water, MREs, and ice are offered by the government and are available. I would think maybe t-shirts, shorts, socks. Plus care packages with hand sanitizer, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, wipes, gum, etc. Also, diapers (including adult diapers) would be a great thing to have on hand. I would think that most people lost most of their clothes. We did. Clean clothes to work in would be nice. *Ideas. I would like for us all to pool ideas, come up with ways to use this terrible event to bring the gospel to the most people possible. That's all I can think about right now. My couch, chair, beds, and tons of other stuff is on the curb in front of my house. It's just the beginning. My body hurts and I'm going to bed early tonight. I will worship with the Gateway brothers and sisters tomorrow, and look forward to the spiritual refreshment. Thanks again for all of your expressions of support ... questions welcomed... love needed ... prayers requested. john