A Slower Pace

We made it down here to Christus Victor in Ocean Springs, Mississippi safely. Thank you everyone for your prayers and thoughts. The drive was very entertaining and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know my teammates — fellow church members — better. We now have a supportive comraderie to get us through whatever God has ahead for us.

We had a nice “last supper” meal in Mobile, AL before we got into the devestated area. It was very interesting to hear the waitress’s story. While the hurricane center was quite a ways away, they still sustained quite a bit of damage. Her story was interesting because she evacuated with a days old baby for hurricane Dennis several weeks before. Since that did not do much damage, she was determined to weather “the next one”. She stayed with her weeks old baby and survived the worst but was without power for 2 1/2 weeks — again, with a weeks old baby. It was interesting to hear her perspective and we were glad to hear everything was ok with her now.

The place we grabbed dinner at had bumper stickers all over as interesting wallpaper. One caught my eye as I headed into the men’s room. It was very applicable and perfect for sharing on this blog. It read “You cannot wander too far from God’s love because his arms are so long.” How appropriate.

We arrived at the church and were then redirected to Camp Victor which was kinda like camp for adults. It is in an old garment factory that has been recycled into the center hub of recovery activity for the church. There are dorms for men and women, a dining room, lounge area, facilities and a very crammed warehouse. It is good to see all the donations coming forth, especially this late in the cycle of destruction. Other than the token acknowledgement of the year anniversary mark, the typical main stream media in it’s MTV attention like way has pretty much neglected this story. It is not fun to talk about the devestation, the loss, the hurt, the recovery efforts over and over and over again every night. The MSM has moved on. However, I was shocked to hear in the orientation that Lutheran Social Services is planning on being here for 6 to 8 more years!!!!! To put it another way, approx 75,000 homes were completely destroyed. Another 60,000 were so severely damaged they need to be rebuilt. So over 135,000 homes need to be rebuilt in some form or another. The Ocean Springs residential construction industry can rebuild 1500 homes a year. The Baton Rouge residential construction industry can rebuild about 3000 homes a year. And while it is possible to bring in construction folks, there really is no place for them to stay. And finally, the statistic that 100,000 people on the Mississippi gulf coast are still living in trailers was striking.

The bottom line is that there is much work to be done here. And most of it is getting done by faith and non-profit places like Christus Victor.

I am going to end with a story that was told to us during orientation.

There was a little boy who, after the storm, was at the coast picking up stranded starfish and throwing them back into the water so they would survive. An old man came up to the boy and told him he was wasting his time. That he should look at all the starfish and that there was no way he could possible help all of the thousands stranded on the beach. The little boy picked up a starfish and threw it back into the water and said “I just made a difference to THAT starfish”.

Tomorrow, I hope to make a difference…..one starfish at a time.

God bless the people of Christus Victor.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

One really good habit I have recently gotten into is my nightly devotions. I have a quarterly devotional alongside my Bible on the nightstand. It has been a good tool to wind down the day and to mentally prepare me for the following day. Sometimes, rather than disturb my wife with the reading light if she is already asleep, I will read some devotional material on my PalmPilot (thanks to AvantGo). I came across this one tonight and I was moved enough to pre-post it for tomorrow’s post. I wanted to make sure it didn’t get updated and overwritten when I sync at work tomorrow.

The Penny

When I was out shopping today, I found a penny on the sidewalk. I stopped and picked it up and realized that I had been worrying and fretting in my mind about things I cannot change. I read the words “In God We Trust” and had to laugh. Yes, God, I get the message. It seems that I have been finding an inordinate number of pennies in the last few months, but then, pennies are plentiful! And God is patient.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

I was involved in a corporate teambuilding event yesterday. Our entire work site rode on a nice bus across the river to a retreat in Indiana. It was a beautiful facility set up to offer exercises, learning, recreation and relaxation.

In addition to enjoying the day with my co-workers and bonding and acting more as a team, a visual picture was painted by one of the facilitators. It went like this — when we are born, we are all given five balls. The first one representing ourselves is made of rubber. We can drop it and it will bounce back. The next four are made of fine crystal and are extremely fragile. One of those represents family. If we drop it, it shatters and we cannot put it back together. The next crystal ball represents friends. That one, too, will shatter if we drop it. The third crystal ball is for your health. Like the others, we need to handle that one gently. The final ball represents your integrity. Drop that one like the others, and you cannot put it back together.

It was a powerful analogy that I hadn’t heard before and puts into perspective how we need to treat those very important aspects of our lives.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Heard a great sermon today at church. Pastor Paul went into an analogy of stones — how they can be used for evil (as in throwing at people like they did in the old days when they stoned someone to death) or good (as in building structures and foundations). We all have a stone but it is what we do with it that matters. Are we going to build something with it? Or throw it in anger? Pastor also mentioned that when you throw it in anger, you are still left with your anger and bitterness. However, when you build something with it, you end up with a whole that is greater than the original stone. It is a very nice parallel to our lives. The gospel referred to us as “living stones”. It all depends on what we do with our stone.

He also went on to describe a term I hadn’t heard before — “consumerism Christianity”. It is defined as that safe belief of not getting involved and taking from the church, from the service and from relationships but never giving. It becomes isolationism and benefits no one. Your faith, religion and spirituality need to be exercised regularly. By giving, by participating, by involving yourself. You end up being a stone in a greater group of stones built for good that has a value greater than the sum of it’s parts.

What are you doing with your stone?

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.

Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly be.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net