Week 35 & 36

Fun at the "Down to Earth" festival.

To which should we yield: tornadoes or floods? When the siren goes off (which has become routine) we flee to the basement, but with all this water, I wonder if drowning shouldn’t be our bigger worry. Having power is now a luxury here in Memphis, and I’m learning to live every moment as if the next will find me cold and in the dark, eating pretzels for dinner. We were informed earlier this week that we’re on alert for going on a disaster project somewhere in Mississippi, and we should be ready to leave on a moment’s notice. As of this afternoon, they told us there’s a pretty good chance we’ll be leaving tomorrow. I’m kind of nervous about the work we’ll be doing, but I’m also excited for the opportunity to help fulfill people’s immediate needs in such a chaotic situation. Please pray for my team and for the people we’ll be trying to help. So many have lost so much these past few weeks.


I'll forgo the usual work and life updates as I'm preoccupied with all this emergency stuff. 
I love you guys,
 k

Comments

  1. Jill in KentuckyMay 1, 2011 at 11:25 AM

    Take care of yourself and I know your compassion and your skills
    will be just what is needed.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Disaster Response Update

This evening I find myself in a Best Western room in Chattanooga with only one roommate and WiFi. We got called off our project in Memphis yesterday to come work with the Red Cross in this devastated section of TN. We'll be working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week until May 15th. Our briefing is tomorrow morning, but it sounds like half of my team will be working out of the Red Cross staging area where ERV's (Emergency Response Vehicles) are being sent from while the other half does case work "in the field", which means going door to door (if that much of the house is still standing) and helping people get signed up for Red Cross benefits ie meals, shelter, etc. The death toll is pretty high here, and we've been told to prepare ourselves to speak with families who may have lost loved ones in the tornadoes, not to mention their homes and possessions. I'm really glad we're here and that I'll get the opportunity to really help people who need it, but I...
Read more

Disaster - Day 6

Image
Operation bath tub laundry. I had such an enjoyable day. Ashlyn and I did our 9 1/2 hour ISP at the Chattanooga Community Kitchen, and it was stress free. Except for being tired, I'm feeling refreshed and ready to start the new week tomorrow. I'm planning on turning in early tonight ie within the next 20 minutes, so that should solve the tired problem. Ashlyn performing one of three soapy agitation cycles. Also, I now have clean laundry, though it's still pretty wet...and did I mention it's hanging on a makeshift clothesline all over the hotel room? Ashlyn and I decided to wash our laundry in our bathtub, using powdered detergent. We filled the tub with hot water and the detergent, then threw our clothes in and agitated it thoroughly using an ordinary windshield scraper we found in our cargo truck. We repeated this process 3 times, then rinsed it twice in bulk, then one article at a time, after which we rung each piece out and hung it up on the clothes line with...
Read more