October 20 – “Get It”

Today seemed to be very quiet around Galveston.  At least around Sycamore Street.  No one had heard anything different from the city.  We're still Yellow Zone.                 Chris and I started the day by walking through our empty-to-the-studs house and trying to envision what we wanted to happen, so we could communicate it to our contractor.  She is great at that sort of thing.  I just can't see it until it's actually there.  I was never good at those spatial relations questions on the SAT.  But Chris could see a wall missing here, a dishwasher there, a wall of bookcases and a desk, a breakfast bar.  About the only contribution I made to our scheme was a suggestion to move the dryer.  I guess I should stick to "easy" stuff like spudding the kitchen floor.  That's an old roofing term.  It means using a heavy iron bar with a blade on the end to scrape up stuff.  It works great, but it is slow, back-breaking work.  I didn't even get halfway before Chris told me to stop and let Nathan help us with that.  She didn't have to twist my arm.  In fact, my arm (both of them) had already made reservations with my brain to be extremely sore tomorrow.  I stopped.   We had some visitors.  We haven't heard any more yet from the new relief agency in town – the one with the guy in charge who's called the "Disaster Pastor."  But our neighbors Larry and Sandy dropped by on the way to their house.  They are planning to put a trailer in their yard.  So are we.  Well, in Mom's yard, actually.  A friend from Arlington is bringing one down tomorrow, and Nathan and April will be staying in it when their FEMA hotel runs out next week.  That means we have to locate or buy a generator with a 30 amp plug outlet to run it.  What does a 30 amp plug outlet look like? Everybody has suggestions: "Get a Honda.  They last longer."  "Make sure it has an automatic low oil shutoff feature."  How about we get whatever WalMart or Home Depot has?  This is Galveston.  Our choices are limited.   My good friend Robert Creech came by.  He's the pastor at University Baptist (That's the one with the great youth praise team).  It was his first trip into town since the storm, and he was on a fact-finding mission with a guy from his church.  They wanted to know what else they could do for Seaside and us as a family. Looks like we may have another mudout team in the making.    Two preachers from Pampa, Texas came by.  Their association of churches is interested in finding ways to help the Galveston pastors.  They had a list of pastors they were trying to track down.  I asked them to go see Dennis, the bi-vocational pastor of First Baptist Bolivar.   He works in Galveston, and it takes him six hours, round trip just to get to his house since the ferry is not running.  He can't live there until after the first of the year, so he's pretty down.  They seemed like great encouragers, and boy, does Dennis need that.  Hey, we all need that – still – here in Galveston.  Turns out these guys treated all the pastors they could find and their families to a meal out at Luby's.  That was a nice thing.  I haven't been to Luby's since we last took Mom – B.I. (Before Ike).   We did have one other visitor.  Tyrone, the guy who has invited us to stay in his home in Omega Bay came by and dropped off a power washer.  "Just thought you might be needing this soon," he said.  "And hang on to it.  There will be others down here who need it.  And I don't."  You know what?  Tyrone gets it.  He has a lot of stuff.  He sees God at work when he notices a need.  So he joins God by doing what he can do to meet that need.  Robert gets it.  He said, "The people at University have so many resources and don't know what to do with them.  I'm just trying to help them see the opportunities."  The guys from Pampa get it.  They are being very creative in finding ways to help pastors who are so swamped with neediness all around that we can't even come up with a list of what we need.   Galatians 5:22-23 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."   Father, help Seaside "get it."  Oh, and I want to "get it," too.  Amen