Smashed Finger

Saturday, Jesse and I joined the Samaritan's Purse disaster relief

as volunteers at Garywood Assembly of God

in Hueytown, Alabama.

A Samaritan's Purse bus was stationed there

to receive any and all volunteers

who were willing to work

just a few hours in order

to relieve even a little bit of

stress from families in the Pleasant Grove

area who had lost everything.

We both arrived at the volunteer site

very nervous and unsure as to what

we were supposed to expect

from the organization or even do in the

"war zone."

We filled out the necessary paperwork

and were then given t-shirts and instructed to

attend the training session in the back area.

It was there that I realized that my Chacos

were probably not the best footwear to choose

for this effort, but hey, they worked.

There were several big groups of teams

that had volunteered and a couple two-three person

teams (including Jesse and myself). There was also

one lady, who had driven by herself from Atlanta,

just to see what she could do to help.

We were sent to a house that needed

debris cleared from their backyard.

And one or two trees had fallen

and needed to be cut and taken to the road.

I don't think we were helping

at this house for more than two hours,

but let me tell you that walking big buckets

of debris back and forth up and down hill

can be slightly taxing in the outrageous heat

that Alabama has to offer.

I won't lie. I got sick. Twice.

The team leader announced that we were pretty

much done with the site and asked if we would

like to go to another one...far, far worse.

Jesse was hesitant to let us go over there,

because I had gotten sick,

but I didn't want to make our ride

(three very gracious Auburn fans

from Oak Mountain) have to take us

back early, because they wanted to work a bit more.

It took about 20 minutes to go a few blocks

through the neighborhood,

because the destruction there was so great

that many roads were closed due to workers

clearing trees and other large debris.

Also, many of the road signs were gone

and the only way you knew what address

someone was is if they spray painted it on

their exterior walls or on a large wooden sign (if their house was completely gone.)

We finally made it to the site and it was a two-story house,

which was converted into a one-story by the tornado.

The roof was completely gone and walls were missing.

The chimney had detached and bricks were strewn about the property.

We were instructed to collect the debris and take it to the road

for the service workers to pick up.

This didn't seem as back-breaking as the first job,

especially since we couldn't carry too many objects at

 a time, because of the lack of wheelbarrows and buckets.

We did have one thing though.

A bobcat.

Not the animal, the miniaturized front-end loader

that could pick up larger objects...

like huge tree pieces and roof sections.

Anywho, we finished as much as we could

before heading back to the main site

and said goodbye to our new Aub buddies.

We then proceeded to head to dinner,

because we had eaten peanut butter crackers for

lunch and needed some serious nourishment.

Five Guys and Fries to the rescue.

To be continued.