Relief effort

(this is an e-mail from Justin's oldest brother Chet who lives in Tennessee, about some volunteer relief efforts his church stake has been involved in. I found it very inspiring, especially the last couple of paragraphs).

The Stake just returned from Houma, Lousiana, southwest of New Orleans. We travelled up and down the the bayous, mostly on a road called Shrimpers' Row. Most homes for a few miles were under 5-6 feet of water, yards have about 6-12 inches of mud covering everything - no way to really clean it all up.

For this trip, the church received a call from Martin Luther King III and his 'Realizing the Dream' foundation. They had been asked for help in this area. He had recently met with Quentin L Cook and another General Authority, and thought to call the LDS church. Elder John Anderson (Area Presidency) asked for 1,000 volunteers for the weekend of 9/26-28. Our stake has only sent as many as maybe 40 in the past, but we showed up with about 100 and enough for 9 crews. Total in all was 1300! - furthest out volunteers were from some remote areas in our Memphis North Stake, some 540 miles away. There was not enough room to house them all, so we had 2 staging locations, the main location being out of a local pentecostal church that was under construction. The members in Houma were so grateful, not because we were helping them, but because we were helping their neighbors and community. The local contact went to the city council and told them 'the Mormons are coming.' They have already heard that FEMA was coming, the Red Cross was coming, 'but YOU actually came.'
Anyway, a wonderful experience. It's funny how many people have just left or returned home from church as we have rolled in and started to work on their homes. This last Sunday, we approached a work order that had everything on it, mud removal, roof tarping, debris, and mold growing inside. We tarped the roof, handed out some supplies to neighbors, cleaned some debris, and then got to work gutting out the walls - 3 layers of wood paneling! The owner was not there as we started, but came in to find 15 people and a lot of work complete. Still a heartbreaker, as her husband had been waiting on the insurance money to put the home on stilts (most homes are on 6-10 ft stilts in the area) for quite some time. We found out that he passed away about 2 weeks before the storm/flood, and she received the money to raise the house right after Hurricane Gustav. But she was in good spirits. When her daughter called to say that the yellow shirts were working on her home, she stayed in church a little longer to pray for us - very moving.

In sacrament meeting, a brother asked me how many times I've done this. I hadn't thought of it in a long while, but realized that we've had 11 trips over the past 2-3 years - and we enjoy it every time. We've been told that our stake will not need to come down for the rest of the planned trips in October. While I really need the breather, I'm a little disappointed. Hopefully we'll get another chance or two.

You know, I had an insight given at the opening of Sunday's sacrament meeting with 400 other volunteers, relating to these storms. It sounds like many have been tempted to think that the increasing frequency of the earth's natural disasters is a punishment, or the judgments of God upon the wicked. But Gordon B Hinckley said that Katrina was not a punishment to the wicked.
Dallin H Oaks said in the 2004 General Conference:"These signs of the Second Coming are all around us and seem to be increasing in frequency and intensity. ... the accelerating pattern of natural disasters in the last few decades is ominous. ...The Lord (said) to the early leaders of the Church:"And after your testimony cometh wrath and indignation upon the people."For after your testimony cometh the testimony of earthquakes. … "And … the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and the voice of lightnings, and the voice of tempests, and the voice of the waves of the sea heaving themselves beyond their bounds." D&C 88:88-92

It's of note to me that these natural disasters are stated to be one of the voices used by the Lord to call and to warn us. But that doesn't make the individual storms a method of judgment on a specific group of people. So, if it's not a pronounced judgment, we find ourselves in chapter 9 of John, where the Pharisees assume a judgment when asking about a man who was blind from birth. "Who hath sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" The Savior answered that neither had sinned, 'but that the works of God should be made manifest in him'.
That's how I see these couple of storms that we've had - an opportunity for communities to come to know the church, to see it's principles in action, and to enable the missionary work at a new level. And more personally for members of the church, a call to offer a small sacrifice and temporally serve our brothers and sisters in their time of need. The Lord's voice - calling to all of us in different ways.

(D&C stands for Doctrine and Covenants. It is a book of scripture found at the end of the Book of Mormon which contains revelations given to the Prophet Joseph Smith after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was restored).