Blessed Week for Samaritan Purse Teams, Chaplains, and Tornado Impacted Families and Homeowners.
This was an amazing week, and yes: one learns that all Samaritan Purse and BGEA Chaplaincy deployments have His signature on them, and they are always amazing. And God, the Master of Creation, does His best, every time, to remind His children to expect surprises, and aways a deep adventure, where lessons and revelations (the SP ‘brothers and sisters call them “God Moments”) — abound in every person you meet; from those here “serving in the name of Jesus.” to those who have faced the perplexing and seemingly random path of these powerful tornados which in late May, violently struck Tallahassee, Florida. The storm stretched all across the city, leaving behind downed electrical grids, and uprooted trees, destroyed houses, in small violent funnels in a group of residential housing, areas, wreaking havoc one or two houses in a given area, then as tornados are prone, leaving adjacent homes, vehicles, equipment, trees untouched. And in areas that were affected, leaving some inhabitants emotionally stretched; and in a ‘spiritual quandary’ some powerfully ripened by this “Providential” circumstance, and mystery of it all, prepared and ready to hear and accept His word, repent, and commit their lives to their Savior.
I always think of the title of C.S. Lewis’s book “Surprised By Joy” (yes and its contents). And it’s always accompanied by tears, as I have been blessed to perceive such moments. My partner (Ed) and I witnessed 5 of these moments as granted by the Holy Spirit, during this seven-day deployment. It is nice to add, again as prodded by the Holy Spirit, to draw the freshly “Born-Again” to the Gospel of John 15:16-17: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask in My name He may give to you. These things I command of you, that you love one another.”
Sometimes an SP deployment, comes within days of the actual physical damage and human losses, others a dozen weeks. In other instances, such as this one, commencing eight weeks after the actual storm over 10 chaotically “aimed” twisters, the initial shock and fear, the electric outages and other local services, have already evolved into the ‘rebuilding’, demolition, or general cleanup phase. And this is the point at which the SP teams and Chaplaincy deployment had arrived, in which I was among the volunteers. Yet, there was a lot on the help ‘work order’ list to accomplish, and to serve those who still desperately needed assistance.
Maybe it’s because this Tallahassee deployment site was a Calvary Chapel was why I, personally, felt so ‘at home here’; it is/was unguardedly welcoming, and everyone was curious about any new team member that came with the new weekly contingent of volunteer Chaplains and Samaritan purse teams: some buffed up youngsters, or locals, others; old guys (like myself) and old gals 60s or above, though not many as old as me (which I find curious) such as the team “orange shirts,” from a church in a county in South Carolina.
With this group — it seemed to be big custom with this group and certainly encouraged: That if you spend time talking to a brother, or sister, you can’t just walk away from that specific interface without praying for each other. A footnote on this: Afternoon Chaplain meetings required a count on the number of prayers you participated in. It was a prayer fest. We knew the Lord was being glorified. We also counted ‘rededications’ to the Lord,
Salvations, Follow-ups, steps to connect new “Born Again Christians” to resources and
Bible study opportunities, and church opportunities. This is a major objective of the BGEA Chaplaincy – It doesn’t stop with just handing out the fine Bible that the new brother or sister, and a hand-clutched prayer of orange shirts..
The joy of each other: One (orange SP Shirt) 64-year-old gentleman I enjoyed a long chat with was an architect who had in the late 1990’s been commissioned by Ruth Graham to design the Billy Graham North Carolina Cove Facility Cabins. And he went into the story that it was about the same time he had prepared a large bid to do some sort of a campus complex for Jim and Tammy Baker. He said that both parties would have waived his proposal if he had accepted the other. “The choice was obvious,” he said, “I went with the Grahams.” We also talked about Jesus; though his humility was questionable because he slept on the most architecturally sophisticated cot I’d ever seen in my life (and it had motors, switches and gears, and a multi-position mattress . I was sleeping on a more utilitarian 2.5 pound cot, that was only four inches from the ground. He did sort of squint at it, and joked “you must have great knees.” I said, “yes, from praying.” (yes, a bit tongue, in cheek).
Biggest “Providential” Surprise:
It was only the second day when it looked as if many of the SP team volunteers had to end their stint. The breakfast area was looking pretty barren. But, then latter in the day, when myself and the other Chaplains were following the SP team ‘crew’ leaders ‘work-orders’ and meeting with home-owners, a team of about 18 to 24 young orange shirt volunteers showed up. It turned out that the North Carolina Samaritan Purse “Operation Christmas Child” warehouse workers, who are fully employed, were sent to Tallahassee to compensate from the substantial dip in team members for the various 8 crews, being sent out. And numbers of hands were needed: most of the work was on clearing large trees and branches, and hauling. An all hands-on-deck, positive attitude worship, “take every thought captive”..
Not only were these young people, men and women, amazing, intelligent, curious and into the Gospel. For some reason I was approached frequently during mealtimes, by just one, and then small groups.. Maybe they were encouraged to visit the silver hairs in the Blue Shirts: But, this one-time about five young women gathered around me to ask me, incredibly, about marriage. I was a bit dumbfounded. One of the young women introduced me specifically to two young women in the small group who were getting married very soon. I was asked for any advice in reference to those big events. I said, I can only give one solid piece of advice. “If you have to compete with your husband, compete about who’s going to be the first to forgive the other when you feel anger, or resentment. That’s righteous, as in Mathew 5: 9 ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’ (for they shall be called sons of God), and, Ephesians 4:26: Be angry but do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath…