Hey there, Cowboy!

Went to Baton Rouge on Tuesday with a group from our church. We took along water, MRE's, tarps and gas cans and spent the day doing some relief work.

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.

Sitting out the storm

Tropical cyclones are at the same time exciting, frightening and boring. If you could only see Beth and I right now. We've been sitting around glued to CNN and The Weather Channel, as well as our local news channel, watching as Gustav bears down on Louisiana. From 4 am to 9 am, we were under constant tornado warnings. We've seen gusts up to 45 mph here and a couple of inches of rain.

Yesterday evening we drove out to the beach and took a walk on the pier. I wish I'd had my video camera. The clouds were amazing. The surf was big -- not huge -- but building and the wind picked up quite a bit as we stood with dozens of others watching dolphins play. We also saw some really cool jellyfish, a ray and a huge sea turtle.

The cool thing about a hurricane or tropical storm is how it brings a community together. The parking lot at the beach was quite full and as we walked over the boardwalk to the beach we were struck by the number of people standing at the water's edge, talking with one another, sharing stories, sharing lives.

Before the storm, wherever you go, whether the supermarket, a restaurant, a hardware store, it's what people are talking about. "Be safe," is a common replacement for "goodbye." You find people helping others in making preparations to their homes.

After the storm, you find rampant acts of kindness and neighborliness. It's really rather remarkable.

But I'm bored at the moment. There's that whole mix of wanting to see something dramatic happen on the TV coverage of the storm, but not wanting the dramatic thing to happen because you know it directly affects another person's life in a negative way. Does that happen to you?

Guess I'll go eat lunch now.

And watch some more Anderson Cooper and Jim Cantore.

How not to wake up

So Beth is already up and I'm lounging in bed, not ready to leave it when Beth comes in and says, "We have no water."

Oy.

So of course, being the man that I am, I have to see for myself. Dang it if she isn't right.

What now? Well, of course, we have to get dressed and go to Starbucks. Duh...

(You know, there are things that have to be taken care of first thing in the morning)

We walk into Starbucks and there are signs on the restrooms stating, "Out of Order. We have no water."

Oy. OY!!

We ask if they know anything and they said that there is a water main that ruptured. I grab a tall brew and we head home again. Just for the heck of it, Beth turns on the kitchen faucet. Voila!! Water!! Thank you, water people!!!

We're happy again.

Goodbye Fay, hello Gustav

This should be interesting...

It's an interesting perspective to live at the target end of a shooting gallery.

So Fay was pretty much a non-event for us, although I know that there are many for whom is has been and still is a major problem. We were expecting Sunday morning to be crazy stormy, but we awoke to blue skies and clear air. Early Monday morning was when we got the tail whip of stormy weather, but that lasted only a couple of hours really.

Gustav? Anybody's guess for now...

August! What happened to the rest of the year?

Can you believe that school is about to start back -- that the summer, for all intents and purposes, is over?

BTW - I don't have in my possession the 4th-of-July-in-KS pictures I promised -- yet.

Right after returning from our trip I got slammed with an upper respiratory infection that laid me out for a full week. I had a cough that felt like the end of the world. I'm still on my second round of antibiotics.

Then I lost my voice. Then I strained it, so I chose not to speak for about 4 days and I've been struggling to get it back since. It's been rather difficult for me. I mean -- I'm a singer for cryin' out loud! I also teach voice. There is something disheartening about a vocal coach who can barely croak his way through a conversation, much less actually sing and demonstrate technique. Oy!

Sunday mornings have been brutal leading worship. I've made it through, but barely.

And now I'm back at raising support which means I'm on the phone hour-after-hour.

And waaa, waaa, waa. And waaa, wa waaaa.

Pray for me.

We had a good weekend attending a training seminar for missionaries raising support. It was, on the one hand, brutal and tiring -- 2 days, 10 hours each, sitting on standard church folding chairs -- as well as intense (we spent 26 hours in preparation for the weekend). But on the other hand, it was encouraging, motivating and informative and we came away with some good tools.

That's about it for now.

Peace out...