October 27 – “Tarzan, the Lumberjack”

Sunday morning some of you may have met my new friends Ferel and Melissa Gage and their kids – Summer, Ty, Autumn, Savannah, and Wyatt.  They are from Palo Pinto, Texas, and have been praying for us and for Seaside pretty much ever since the storm.  They came this weekend to see their niece in Clear Lake and to see what they could do as a family to help out in Galveston.  Today was their day to help out at the Vaughan house.                                 It is still hard for me to understand what we need.  Though we see a faint light at the end of the tunnel, and though I am committed to a life of optimism because of what Jesus has done in the past, I admit I am still overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the task facing us in rebuilding.  I get to thinking in terms of the city, and all I can picture is where to send teams of volunteers and what can I tell them to do when they get here.  And I end up drawing a blank.  Then I get to thinking of Seaside, and all I can think of is how incredibly blessed we were not to have lost our building and everything in it.  Churches from all over Texas are calling and asking what we need and how can they help.  And I draw a blank.  Then I get to thinking of my own family, of our house and Nathan and April across the street and Mom staying with my brother in Houston.  People like Ferel and Melissa call and ask how they can help my family specifically.  And I draw a blank.  I guess I have developed a lot of blank in my head over the last six weeks.   The Gages came to our house ready to work today, and all I could think of was trimming the now-dead-and-dying trees around our power lines (not that they have power right now, but someday they will!).  Ferel was ready.  He had a chain saw and ropes and mountain climbing gear.  He got his kids all gloved up and put them to work raking and bagging leaves on our deck and removing downed tree limbs from the yard.  I hadn't even noticed the leaves on the deck.  I remembered seeing the limbs back when we first came home, but then we went inside and my brain fried.  Ferel then geared up himself.  He strapped on the climbing gear, shimmied up the nearest tree, draped some rope around a limb, and called for the power tool.  It was amazing.  It was like Tarzan had appeared in our backyard dressed like a lumberjack.  With Melissa's steady hand on one end of the rope, he took out the offending branches and was ready to take down the whole tree right then.  His lovely wife - and my own - had another opinion, however, so he stopped for the day and began cleanup, all the while talking about how they "hadn't done near enough," and "Wasn't there something else they could do."  What an amazing family.  I couldn't believe how much they did do, and they were disappointed they didn't do more.   What a great picture of the Family of God.  1 Peter 2:9-10 says, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."   Father, we have work to do as your family – declaring your praises, coming before you in prayer for your people, standing ready to "direct traffic" as you draw lost people toward yourself.  Give us the creative eyes of the Gage Family – to see the needs around us that others are still too overwhelmed to see … and meet them.  Amen.