Ike Day 14 - Gutting

We welcomed back the team from First EFC Austin today and implemented our strategy of continuing work on recovery on the Galveston Bible Church; in-reach, caring for the many needs in the Body; and outreach into the community. The church office area and the building we are planning to use as a distribution center were attacked today for clean out. The offices were the last part of the church that had yet to be touched.

The outreach part of the team went to serve the family of a Galveston PD officer. He has been working long days and has not been able to help. this was the first day they could get things out of the house. The smell in the house was overpowering. mold had grown several fee up the walls. The Grandma, pictured above, wrote down serial numbers of all the electronic equipment.

Raynette, the wife, spoe with us at length about the emotion struggle she faced each day. she confided that she really could only think of a very short time frame into the future, like an hour or two. She had no idea where they where going to live. She teared up as she looked at the pile in the street and said. "That's all my life in that pile. It's 26 years of my kids lives. All gone."

We prayed for her and her family before we left. The team will go back tomorrow to gut out the drywall.

The Part of the team also headed to clean out the contents of a church member, and found a neighborhood filled with significantly flooded homes, and a variety of languages being spoken. The team, pictured below, spent a lot of time out talking with neighbors, and getting more requests for help in cleaning out homes. The home next door had an opened refrigerator was an 8.5 on the gagmeter. We'll work on that one tomorrow. We also got a list of about a dozen police officer families and some elderly people who are desperate for help. We pray that volunteers will come to help more in this neighborhood.

We were also surprised to have found that a quick conversation with a local reporter turned into a Section B front page story in the Galveston County Daily News.... clik here to read more.. about the Texas Chainsaw Missionaries.

and news from Houma...

It’s late, but I wanted to let you know how God is at work here in southern Louisiana. Yesterday as we were working on a couple of trees for a lady who is a nurse in Houma, she offered to get our team lunch. As we were enjoying Po-boys, a young African American man named Derrick came up to us and started talking. He asked a few questions about where we were from, and then commented on our shirts. He said he could see that we really live out what they say. For those of you who don’t know, printed on the back of our shirts is, “Showing the love of Christ to those in need”. He said he could sense that love and began to share with us how he was going to go back to his church and tell them about what he had seen and experienced and encourage them to get out into their community and do the same. He also shared with us that he felt he had a calling to the ministry, but there were a few things of the world that still had a grip on him. Please pray for Derrick that God would transform him and renew his mind. And pray for me; I got contact information for him, and plan to follow up with him to see how I might be able to encourage him in his walk with God.

Today as we served on Acklen Street again, I had a conversation with Jewel on her front porch. She was telling me that she was really lucky that we were clearing a large tree from her back yard and garage. She thought that it was just fate that she crossed paths with us. I assured her that I believed that God had appointed us to serve her today. She looked at me a little oddly, but I believe God used that in her life. Pray that God will continue to enable us to plant and water seeds of the Gospel as we serve here in Houma.