I am tired. Less than a year from 70 and working 7 days a week! 
Just as I got the original 3D printed slides (on another thread) and installed them,- and I was looking forward to giving them a good try-out, I was brought into some rather desperate situations.
On March 10 and 11, our area of NW Mississippi, as well as N E Louisiana - were inundated with HUGE amounts of rain. Our immediate area had 15 inches of rain in 24 hours. I work with churches in 3 counties in NW MS. Between the three counties, we had 300+ homes flooded 2 to 3 to 4 feet, and it stayed that way for most houses for nearly a week or more before the water subsided.
I have been working 5 1/2 days a week with MS Baptist Disaster Relief efforts (all volunteers) mudding out (mucking out, as some call it) houses, which meant hauling all furniture out to the streets, cleaning out the house, stripping the walls of sheet rock and insulation and disinfecting as well as mold spraying. This was a "no cost" to the owners of the houses. We averaged about 8 to 15 volunteers (Baptist) a day working on the clean-outs. In addition, Methodist, Mennonite and Presbyterian groups as well as Rubicon (a Veterans group) all worked together to do as much as we could, as fast as we could. I spent as much time working with officials to find the right person to get the right permission to do the right things, if you know what that means.
I will say that our Baptist Disaster Relief organization really surprised me. No one was allowed to work in certain situations without qualification badges that showed that they had been to and received qualified training - that also meets FEMA and other government regulations. I didn't have any of the training badges but I did have a badge that identified me as a MS Baptist Convention Board Rep, which they honored to go into the sites and talk to owners as a chaplain.
I was also involved in helping some people with temporary (2 - 6 month) lodging (outside of the few days that the Red Cross put people up for 3 days to a week). My church organization has a small house, one bedroom, kitchen and small living room that has not been used in several years. I spent evenings for the past week preparing it - fixing plumbing, replacing light fixtures and an air conditioner - so that a widow lady could move back "home". She has been staying near Memphis with relatives for the past 4 weeks. She will only pay utilities. We have another "mission house" that had been used for furloughing missionaries, and since it had not been used much in the last 10 years, so we put it up for sale. Then the flood. We took the for sale sign down (at the recommendation of the realtor.) It is basically a two family house. And two families are living there now. The two ladies in the two families are sisters, and their flooded houses were side by side - and they lost their cars also.
This has been a 7 day a week job for me as I had my normal responsibilities of going to churches, soliciting volunteers to join in on disaster relief training, having evening speaking engagements on the subject.
I feel like a few of the tech guys here who get about one or two days a year off. It has been 4 1/2 weeks since I had a day of rest.
Our main team pulled out yesterday (Saturday) and left the final 18 - 20 houses to be cleaned - to local groups. The Mennonites as well as Methodists will be sending new teams in - in later April to help with the re-construction.
We have had college students that are from our churches here to come on Saturdays and help clean up the trash in people's yards, as well as along streets. It was great to work with those "kids". They have a great volunteer attitude!
It has been tiring, but it has been worth it.
My official job is "Director of Missions" over a 28 church area in rural NW MS. A director of missions is like a "bishop" except instead of being the boss of 28 churches, I have 28 pastors as my boss!
Just as I got the original 3D printed slides (on another thread) and installed them,- and I was looking forward to giving them a good try-out, I was brought into some rather desperate situations.
On March 10 and 11, our area of NW Mississippi, as well as N E Louisiana - were inundated with HUGE amounts of rain. Our immediate area had 15 inches of rain in 24 hours. I work with churches in 3 counties in NW MS. Between the three counties, we had 300+ homes flooded 2 to 3 to 4 feet, and it stayed that way for most houses for nearly a week or more before the water subsided.
I have been working 5 1/2 days a week with MS Baptist Disaster Relief efforts (all volunteers) mudding out (mucking out, as some call it) houses, which meant hauling all furniture out to the streets, cleaning out the house, stripping the walls of sheet rock and insulation and disinfecting as well as mold spraying. This was a "no cost" to the owners of the houses. We averaged about 8 to 15 volunteers (Baptist) a day working on the clean-outs. In addition, Methodist, Mennonite and Presbyterian groups as well as Rubicon (a Veterans group) all worked together to do as much as we could, as fast as we could. I spent as much time working with officials to find the right person to get the right permission to do the right things, if you know what that means.
I will say that our Baptist Disaster Relief organization really surprised me. No one was allowed to work in certain situations without qualification badges that showed that they had been to and received qualified training - that also meets FEMA and other government regulations. I didn't have any of the training badges but I did have a badge that identified me as a MS Baptist Convention Board Rep, which they honored to go into the sites and talk to owners as a chaplain.
I was also involved in helping some people with temporary (2 - 6 month) lodging (outside of the few days that the Red Cross put people up for 3 days to a week). My church organization has a small house, one bedroom, kitchen and small living room that has not been used in several years. I spent evenings for the past week preparing it - fixing plumbing, replacing light fixtures and an air conditioner - so that a widow lady could move back "home". She has been staying near Memphis with relatives for the past 4 weeks. She will only pay utilities. We have another "mission house" that had been used for furloughing missionaries, and since it had not been used much in the last 10 years, so we put it up for sale. Then the flood. We took the for sale sign down (at the recommendation of the realtor.) It is basically a two family house. And two families are living there now. The two ladies in the two families are sisters, and their flooded houses were side by side - and they lost their cars also.
This has been a 7 day a week job for me as I had my normal responsibilities of going to churches, soliciting volunteers to join in on disaster relief training, having evening speaking engagements on the subject.
I feel like a few of the tech guys here who get about one or two days a year off. It has been 4 1/2 weeks since I had a day of rest.
Our main team pulled out yesterday (Saturday) and left the final 18 - 20 houses to be cleaned - to local groups. The Mennonites as well as Methodists will be sending new teams in - in later April to help with the re-construction.
We have had college students that are from our churches here to come on Saturdays and help clean up the trash in people's yards, as well as along streets. It was great to work with those "kids". They have a great volunteer attitude!
It has been tiring, but it has been worth it.
My official job is "Director of Missions" over a 28 church area in rural NW MS. A director of missions is like a "bishop" except instead of being the boss of 28 churches, I have 28 pastors as my boss!
twistsol
LCHIEN
Loring in Katy, TX USA
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