Hi everyone, 

It has been a while since I have updated all of you on what has been going on. Training camp finished about two weeks ago and then the guys from our squad headed to Jackson, Kentucky. We had the opportunity to serve with Samaritan’s Purse participating in disaster relief. 

At the end of July, the town of Jackson experienced tremendous and destructive flooding that left many people’s homes in shambles in which they lost so much of what they had. Most of the town lives alongside a river and that river rose 50 feet in one night! I had no idea that a river could overflow that much. However, we were able to go home to home and help these homeowners tear down their houses to the bare minimum so that they could rebuild it later on. This was quite an eye opening experience for me. I have seen how destructive floods are on the news but never have I seen it first hand. The homes we walked into gave me compassion for these many homeowners who have almost lost everything. And yet, many of them seemed to have hope that they would be able to rebuild and restart life again. 

A beautiful thing that Samaritan’s Purse focused on was that loving the homeowner was so much more important than helping to restore the actual house. There was an emphasis on using the service we were doing to share the Gospel with these people. Many days, the job became tiring having to shovel mud, tear down drywall, or pull nails but when put in perspective that this act of service would help us to give new hope to these homeowners, it was well worth it. 

Over the past two weeks, our busy schedule made it hard to spend time with the Lord. It was hard for me to have the motivation to sit down and read my Bible. One thing the Lord was teaching me though was to not let a morning devotion be the only time you spend with Him. Throughout the day I could be praising and talking to Him. 

Last Wednesday, we pulled up to a house early in the morning and our team leader gathered us around to talk about what we were doing at this particular home. After our little meeting out team leader’s wife had to use the bathroom but the house we were at did not have a working bathroom. The homeowner’s brother, Ed, said that he would drive her to a camper to use the bathroom and I was immediately worried/alerted that this could be a sketchy situation. I was looking at Ed and from my judgment, to be brutally honest, he looked creepy. Ed did end up driving her to the bathroom and everything was fine. He actually was a really kind man the more I talked to him and he was really thrilled to see young people serving others. As we worked throughout the day, I ended up stepping on a nail which was pretty painful. Our team leader tried to find the first aid kit but could not. Ed ended up kindly driving to his house and getting some hydrogen peroxide and band aids. He came back with the the supplies in his hands and I thought he was simply going to hand them to me. Instead, he had me sit down and take off my socks and shoes so he could clean my foot. As I was sitting there with my foot on his leg while he cleaned and poured hydrogen peroxide on my smelly and dirty foot which was also dripping all over his pants, I was so humbled. I had judged this man by his outward appearance earlier in the day but now he was cleaning my dirty foot with his own hands. I was very convicted and felt like God was reminding me to love the people that he made even those who appear different or strange. 

Shoutout to Eric and Tammy for brewing great team leaders and being great role models for all of us!

Our team at Samaritan‘s Purse with Price, one of the homeowners we were able to serve.