May 03rd, 2014

I know it's been a while since we wrote on here but we're still pluggin' away here in sweet home Alabama. We've been asked about the damage here around us so hopefully we'll be getting some more teams coming because there's plenty to do for sure! There are a lot of trees and power lines down and tangled and quite a bit of damaged homes. I am in a bit of a pickle right now trying to figure out how to fit everything in. You might say I've taken on too much but I'd like to say we're operating in the Spirit and God will provide. Time will tell. We'll just take one day at a time.....

I have been begging for work and now the floodgates have opened and I hesitate to say "no". Projects that we've been trying to put together for some time, all seem to hit at once. And now tornado damage all around us. I'm hoping that we get some new sign-ups so we can work in the new tornado damage areas some. I've been doing some assessing and went out cutting trees with Faith Chapel and the Baptist men disaster team this past week. Shaina and I went to an area today that was just opened up yesterday. Some Baptist men came and cut a path through the road so you could access the people back in there. INCREDIBLE how  anyone could have survived as the area contained a lot of mobile homes that were demolished, and people were in them! You cannot convince me that there is no God because by looking at all the havoc these storms wreak there should by all means be more deaths. We have seen home after home after home completely destroyed with nothing left salvageable  or standing but somehow in the middle, people survived. God is good!! 

We welcome a new team to the Next Step STORM camp this week- Sons of a Carpenter arrived this evening. They asked if they could go out on Sunday in the disaster areas since they were already gonna be here and we're obliging. We don't usually work on Sunday of course cuz that's when we and our neighbors go to church but desperate circumstances call for desperate measures. After all, if we really are about the people, how can we say "no, not today cuz I gotta go to church". (Hmmmm, that reminds me of a story I heard about a guy who did some healing on a Sabboth and was accosted by some disgruntled religious fanatics.) My prayer is that tomorrow will be filled with worship as we're among the trees! Remember, if we don't praise God, the trees will cry out! (ok, so Jesus said the "stones" or "rocks" would cry out so I figure a tree could holler quicker than a rock;)) God is good!

Did I mention that we could use some more folks to book a week or two?! ~monte