23-Jun-2007

STEP Deployment – Flood Relief, Gainesville Tx
 
Waiting for our first assignment…….                                Issuing gloves.

Hauling out the ruins (notice Lori in the picture on the right).

One lady tires to salvage what she can…..another homeowner has to stack it in her front yard to be hauled away.

This lady directs which things to salvage and which to trash.
 
I rip out wet carpet while others clean up debris out of a yard.
 
At the end we sing and pray for the victims, trying to instill some sort of hope and sense of new beginning despite the tremendous loss. The whole deployment caused me to contemplate how quickly a lifetime can be lost. One man had a priceless stamp collection that was now all over the garage floor, muddy and ruined. Another old man had stacks of 8-track tapes and old records half of which were ruined by water. Others had little more than junk, and yet it was their life and memories. They had all traded time and effort for those things that were so quickly swept away, nothing remained to show the value of their effort. Is the foundation of our efforts on the rock of Jesus Christ and the things that last for a lifetime, or have we built up a house of human effort on the sand of worldliness. What are you trading your time here on earth for?

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