Hooking up with Healing Place Church, we were each assigned to a crew to go out work. Some of us were on chainsaw detail, taking care of downed trees and branches. Others headed out with tarps to patch damaged and leaking roofs. The rest went into one of the hardest hit areas in Greater Baton Rouge to help serve hot meals to the residents there.
Beth and I were with two local guys, Rob and Trice on a tarp crew. The first house we went to was the home of miss Stacie, who had her 5-year-old grandson, Jason with her. As she stepped out to greet us, Jason slipped past her, came up to me, grabbed my hand and said, "Hey there, Cowboy! Can I be your partner?" (Notice my chapeau in the picture) Looked and sounded like Opie from Andy Griffith. He latched onto Beth and I and wouldn't leave our side.
After installing tarps on 4 roofs we made our way back to the church to join up with the others from Coast, clean up a bit and head home. It may seem silly -- 10 hours of driving for 4 hours' work. But it was so worth it. We don't feel like we did much, but the locals were so very appreciative.
I sometimes think that if I can't give a large amount of time in an important effort such as this, that it's not worth giving any. It was very clear to me Tuesday how wrong I have been in that mindset.
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