A Shamelessly Stolen Christmas List

Sometimes this year we are making lists of things we want or wish for. Paul made a list of some things we just did. I thought I would drop it here so it would not be so quickly forgotten. I suppose someone might think this is bragging or something - but that would only be the case if this blog was seen by tons of people. Who sees this anyway? This is a journal to remember what we've been up to. Thanks Paul for remembering.

1. We distributed over 300 blankets to people who had only recently received FEMA trailers or were still living in tents, thereby demonstrating the love and compassion of Christ to Biloxi(ans?), the Division Street CoC, and our own children. Many seeds were planted!

2. We provided encouragement to the Division Street CoC through the angels and other donated items at a crucial time (immediately after receiving discouraging news that the insurance settlement is inadequate to rebuild). We all need to know that we are not alone in the face of adversity.

3. We demonstrated the unity of the body that Christ prayed for in the garden (immediately before His arrest, knowing full well what lay ahead – Jn 17:20). “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, black nor white, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal
3:28, Gibbs Modern English Translation, 2005). This was also an answer to our own prayers.

4. We discussed the possibility of the Division Street congregation visiting Central on some future weekend, as yet to be determined.

5. As a result of our example, the Division Street congregation was challenged to focus more outward on the community instead of their own struggles by Paul Warren on Sunday AM.

6. We have been searching for the past few weeks for clear direction about how this relief effort should be continued, and I believe that that answer was provided during this trip. Just as so many other churches have been rebuilt by relief teams, we now have the opportunity to serve the Division Street church in the same way. This is a great opportunity. We have the necessary skills. It would encourage the spirit of the church and further increase the unity of the body at Central. As so many others have already said, the Division Street church needs to be there to
minister to the local community. I do not know if it is the Lord’s will for the church to remain in that location, but I believe that this is an answer to prayer, and if it is so, He will provide the means and the materials to complete this work. It would be most fitting to do so on MLK
weekend, which give us a month to prepare. I hope that we can all join together to meet this need if given the opportunity.

-Thanks Paul


And then Lisa added....

7. Don't forget the nursing home visit.

8. And another biggie--the impression made on our children. Here's how the weekend was seen through one set of those eyes (attached)..... Which led to Morgans post below!

Merry Christmas all!

Thoughts from Tony

When I heard Paul speak about his first trip to Mississippi my heart was moved to want to get involved. I told my wife that night that I wanted to go there and help. But I did not commit to going until the week of December 12^th. I was doing other things on the weekends people from Central were going. I was either working overtime at work or working on my house. I realized later that those things could have waited. Some of the reasons that I went this past weekend were: to encourage the brothers and sisters that were impacted by the hurricane, to serve people in community near the church building and to spend time with brothers and sisters that I do not normally spend time with. Those things happen along with much, much more. The trip itself was an opportunity for me to get out of my comfort zone. I realized that I need to continue to work on that.

We had very gracious hosts. The people that I met at the Long Beach Church were extremely nice and good to us. I enjoyed meeting John Tate, Mark Hodges and other members that were there. I can tell by their outward appearance that they have inner peace. The time with the Division Street brothers and sisters was very encouraging as well. The people that interacted with the most there was Eddie, Charles, Tony and his family. They, as well the other brothers and sisters there, have a humble spirit about them. To have the disposition they have after going through what they have been through set a great example for me. The worship service was powerful in terms of the passion in which Paul preached about living by faith. Paul impressed me as someone who loves the Body of Christ. He wants to see the Division Street Church building rebuilt. He seems to be working very hard to make that happen. I pray God’s will concerning that. The Division Street Church of Christ needs to be there. There are so many people that they can minister to. I pray that they will remain in that location. I would like for God to use me in anyway he can to help Paul and the Division Street Church be successful in rebuilding. I went to encourage them and the Long Beach congregation, but I was encouraged by them.

Driving to Biloxi on Sunday and seeing the destruction that the powerful hurricane left was very humbling. But what humbled me the most was seeing people live in tents. While giving blankets to people in the neighborhood, Paul, Tamela, and I meet a man named Elijah. Elijah is living in a tent. Paul met him first. He looked to be in his late 40s or early 50s. It was hard to tell. Elijah had on a blue jacket with U.S Air Force on it. He was walking very fast. Elijah was on his way to get scrap plywood from a man named Fred that was working on his house. The reason he was getting plywood was because the lot his tent was on was covered in mud. We gave Elijah several blankets for him and the other people living in tents on the lot. At work Monday I thought about the trip to Mississippi a lot. But what went through my mind the most was Elijah and the other people living in tents and trailers. The trailers were small, but they are big, big improvement from the tents. Other people I thought about at work included: Martha Jones. She was living in her car before she got a trailer. I will think about a lady named Tiffany. She has a baby boy named Christian. He looked to be about 2 months old. She had lived in a tent with the baby and the baby’s father before she received a trailer. There are others I will think about. They include Mae, Rico Vickie and Mr. Gaines. Looking back I wished I would have asked them if I could pray for them while I was there. What I did was pray for them when I got home Sunday night. I will continue to pray for them.

I had a lot with of fun with the people from Central that went on the trip. I have always respected the families that went. The example that the Burns, Burgess, Gibbs and Whiting families have set has always been an encouragement to me. Being around them this weekend I see clearly the compassion and love they have for people. My wife is always asking me when we are going to spend time with other people. I saw the benefit of serving with your brothers and sisters and encouraging them and receiving encouragement from them. There are many things I will try harder to change about me since coming back from the coast. My interaction with people inside the Body and outside is among them. It was a coincidence that Bennie and I went the same weekend. I had been thinking about going for awhile and I happen to ask at work him if he was going. Then again maybe it wasn’t coincidence. Lord willing I will continue to be involved in the Katrina relief effort. I will serve in any way God wants me to serve. I ask some of the people that went what they noticed about how I served. What I can different or better. I look forward to other opportunities here and elsewhere.

- Tony Callins

Excited Cautious Optimistic Concern

We're about to go! This is out first trip to Mississippi together - all of us. Jan and I are looking forward to the trip for so many reasons. We can't wait to share Christ's love, which compels us... We are hoping to share a life lesson and experience with our children. We're also a little nervous about going into an environment that is outside of our normal comfort area. Is it going to be safe? Will my kids be all right. Gotta trust God on this.

We were talking to the kids last night about the upcoming trip to deliver some Christmas gifts, blankets and Bibles to Biloxi. One child was ALLLL excited. WoooHoooo!!!! I bet those people are going be excited - they probably can't wait.... i can't wait to.... i sure hope i get to..... excitement and cheer in abundance. Now the other child was a little more concerned about this situation.... is this okay... do they want us to come... are we gonna be okay.... what if.... will we have...

Now both children are about equally good and evil as far as I can tell. God just made them a little bit different. I would imagine that each reflects God's image a bit differently - and unfortunately captures the fall in their own way.

When we blend together as a family our strengths blend together to accomodate our weaknesses. The concern of one can aid the ignorance of another. The boldness of one can encourange the fear of another. Family. Maybe that's why God made families - both blood and spiritual.

That is what has been so neat about the Mississippi trips! Look at how each has overcome some of our various issues - aspects of the fall - struggles and entaglements with the world and sin. We have had to lay down distractions to make time. Look how each part of God's image has blended together to achieve the goal we've set out to do. Has it not been so beautiful.

May God bless those on the trip going this weekend.

-Jamie

Christmas In My House

Elizabeth started fourth grade this year. There was a break from school after Katrina - school got wet. Mom’s barber shop and their house had a break, too - they flooded.

The first time I met Elizabeth, she looked way depressed. She would hardly make eye contact. She retreated behind Mom’s leg.

Saturday night Elizabeth and her Mom and her brother came to the Christmas party. Folks from Macon, Georgia brought Christmas to Long Beach. There were stuffed toys, and a chocolate fountain for covering cocoanut delights, and a huge decorated tree. There were children and people and noise everywhere.

Since Katrina, volunteers from all over have been doing things at Elizabeth’s house. It has been “mucked out.” The electrical and plumbing and insulation and sheet rock have had attention. There is a stove and a washer and a dryer.

Elizabeth was different Saturday night. She bounced and glowed. Her eyes sparkled. There was a “mile-wide” smile that was contagious for everyone. No retreating tonight; there were neck hugs and grins.

Down on one knee, eye-to-eye, I had to ask, “Elizabeth, what are you so excited about?”

“Christmas at my house!”

Yep, it happened again, Ed’s eyes got wet.

Higher, more evangelistic motives for volunteering? Yes, there are; like sowing the seed of the kingdom, and more. But I am a child, my Father’s child, and for Saturday night, it was enough motivation for this child to hear from another child, “Christmas at my house!”

Please forgive the slightly sloppy theology; I am a child and I am excited thinking of “Christmas” in my Father’s house.

He has already given me the gift!

Where would you be?

Three guys, three stories. What got into Paul, Steve, and me to dash off to Southern Mississippi on Friday, September 16, barely two weeks after Miss Katrina’s visit? Ask Paul and Steve about their story. It is always true that one viewpoint is incomplete.

Another question. What has gotten into the approximately seventy people from Central that made them dash off to Southern Mississippi? Ask them.

Here’s my version.

During the morning of Wednesday, September 15, a buddy at work asked, “Ed, if you weren’t here working, what would you be doing?”

“I guess I would be down south somewhere helping people recover from Katrina.”

That was Wednesday morning. By Wednesday night after the assembly at Central and the subsequent phone call from Paul at home, I was “signed-up” to leave for Gulfport, Mississippi on Friday morning.

Paul told us to take everything we even thought we may need. We didn’t know where we would be staying, what we would be doing, where we would be going - nothing. We just knew we had to go.

“Um, God, could you give us a little guidance, please? Maybe a cloud or a fire?” That qualifies as a prayer.

“Oh, you want us to go to a place where you will show us? Didn’t you tell some guy that a long time ago? Like, maybe Abraham?” Talking with God still qualifies as prayer and it is always full of exciting little surprises.

Armed with shovels, rakes, sledge hammers, gas masks, a turn-out suit, junk food, water, bug spray, and the jitters, we set off from the Ditto’s house early on a Friday morning.

“Where are we going?”

“Gulfport, Mississippi.”

“Yeah, you told us that, but where?”

Paul had been to Gulfport the weekend before with a co-worker. They had done some work at Diamond Head. He had seen a sign along highway 49 in North Gulfport that heralded a Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Distribution Center. “We will go there.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know.”

Paul had done some research on Mapquest and had directions to as many of the congregations in the area as he could find. It was not a tall stack of paper.

We found the Disaster Relief Center sign. It was at the Orange Grove Church of Christ building. The National Guard was directing traffic. We ducked in the busy driveway and parked in the “Volunteer” lot.

“Who is in charge, here?” I asked. We were directed to Gary Finley from the Creve Hall Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He was in charge of giving away huge amounts of food, water, and other necessities supplied mostly in boxes from the Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Fund.

Gary recommended we go to one of two congregations, one in Gulfport or one in Long Beach. After an hour of searching for the one in Gulfport, despite having addresses and a map, we finally decided God wanted us to go to Long Beach. I called George Eyrich, an elder. He answered on the first try and gave us directions. Seemed like a pillar of clouds to me.

There were no signs - none - they were gone with the wind named Katrina. Somehow we followed the pillar of clouds and arrived at the Long Beach building, or what was left of it. The roof was gone. There were guys crawling all over the skeletal rafters trying to get a cover on before any more rain came. The drive-through porch was gone. A good bit of the inside was soaked. There was no power, water, or sewer. A line of cars wrapped around the building all the way to the Port-a-Johns. Food was being given out. State Farm Insurance Company had set up shop in the parking lot in a trailer to help people with their claims.

“Who is in charge, here?” I asked. This was getting redundant but it worked. The preacher, Mark Hodges, greeted us weakly. He looked totally exhausted, like he could barely stand. An elder, John Tate, appeared a few minutes later. He looked worse.

“How can we help?” I asked. “What can we do?”

A long sigh, “We don’t know.”

In the storm-ruined auditorium, we five sat on pallets of diapers, and food, and water, and on the concrete floor. Mark and John were about done for. “Have you had tetanus shots lately?”

“Maybe.”

“Go to the temporary clinic across the street and get a shot then come back and we will talk.”

The two of them were sitting in the same spots when we got back. I think they had only moved as much as was necessary to breathe and blink their tired, red eyes.

They told us what had happened and was happening. They opened themselves totally to us to do what we saw to do. Our prayers were answered. Opportunities were everywhere. There was food to hand out the door to the passing car-loads of worn-out people. There were boxes of food to deliver door-to-door (or tent-to-tent) in Bay St. Louis and Waveland. The auditorium stage was lighted by the evening sun beams shining through the holes on the roof - there was work up there. The “Job Board” in the dry corner of the fellowship room was full. People needed help in their yards and in their houses. Mark and John and George needed someone to relieve them.

Questions about where to sleep and what to eat came later. The sledge hammers and chainsaws could wait. Our first work (after an aborted food delivery trip to Bay St. Louis) was to sort and stack pallets full of cases of diapers. No one told us to sort diapers; we saw - we did. It was a follow-the-clouds thing. It was about a 2-hour job for us three macho-men. Little did I know He was training me for Saturday morning, but that is another story. My Father had it all figured out. Follow His pillar of clouds even if it means sorting diapers.

Sometime between Friday afternoon and Sunday after the assembly under the tent, It became clear, at least to me, that anything Central could do was what was needed - anything. Over the years, God has brought Central through some very hard things seasoned with some wonderful things. He inspired a Lifetalk group to lead the congregation in 50-days of prayer. I believe one of His answers is a trip to Southern Mississippi. He has uniquely prepared Central for Katrina and the people of Southern Mississippi. He showed me that I had to let Him use me to tell the Southern Mississippi story in a way that made it personal to His prepared people at Central. One of the three of us had to do the Power Point presentation the next Wednesday night and Paul and Steve out voted me. Follow the cloud.

So what got into me to take three weekends and two weeks to go there? What has gotten into seventy women and men and teens and old folks and college students? What makes me be unable to not go again?

There is no glory in doing servant’s work. The glory goes to God. At best, what I do is “dirty rags” (Is. 64:6). But somehow, I get the picture of my Father, Abba Himself, taking my pitiful attempts and hanging them with little decorated magnets on His refrigerator door. Somehow, the tiny impact I have is white linen in which Jesus’ Bride is dressed (Rev. 19:8). If you want to make the Groom happy, make His Bride look good.

What got into me to go? The better question is, how can I not go?

Here’s a question, “If you weren’t here working, what would you be doing?”

Washed

There were serious discussions whether the Environmental Protection folks would allow it to cross from Mississippi into Alabama even though it, and its dank, black filthiness, was well sealed inside a plastic bag. Strong men carried it and put it in the back of the trailer as far from the inside of the vehicle as was possible. Even though saturated and stained with the slimy, vile sludge, the “gaudy, bright orange color” (as one has described it) seemed to exude through the bag some kind of ominous warning - like the purple-ish, magenta color used to warn of nuclear radioactive contaminated stuff. The plastic bag itself took on the grossness from within making us wonder how long before it would dissolve the bag and escape.

It was unloaded and put on the other side of the parking lot - way away - while the other things were unloaded. With trepidation, the cankered plastic bag was loaded into the back of the bed of the pick-up truck. The camper shell door was propped open to allow ventilation should the eroding plastic bag finally succumb.

Strong detergent, enzymes, color safe bleach, and scalding hot water sloshed in the washing machine as the plastic was carefully unsealed. With a sick sounding plop, and a quick slam of the lid, it was submerged and again contained. Even with this delicate and deft handling, the foul stench permeated the closed-off washroom. Strong stomachs abandoned the room and slammed the door.

Two wash cycles later, the lid was tentatively lifted the slightest crack. Then, carefully, it was lifted out and examined. It could be held in un-protected hands but the evil-looking stain was still there.

More hot water, detergent, and suds? More enzymes and bleach? No, the stain is there. Nothing we can do will ever remove it.

Did You say there is a way? It sounds pitifully simple and totally ridiculous, but we have to try - the stain is still there.

You say that if we soak it in this red stuff, the stain will be gone?

What else did You say? Not only will the stain be gone, it will be white as the purest snow? You are nuts! That makes exactly no sense.

Why don’t You ask us to do something big, something scientific, something that shows how intelligent and powerful we are?

Soak it in something red?

Oh, You’re not talking about the shirt? You are ….. talking about ….. me?

That’s how I am.

I want to do something smart, something special, something that is logical, something of my own making. Wash my robes in that red stuff? It doesn’t make sense.

Trust You? It really will remove my stain? Really? Really?

“Yes, child, really.”

And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb". Revelation 7:14

The orange shirt is still stained. No, the red stuff won’t help it, but the red stuff cleaned me.

Can I ever wear that stained orange shirt enough times to repay You?

“No, but you can wear it. While you wear it, I will lead you through your tribulation.”