I’ve had enough. The media has absolutely driven me to crazy with the hurricane coverage. As usual, they chose to pick on the political implications of things and miss the real story.

The read story on the gulf coast. It’s not about race, it’s not about the federal government or the state government… it’s about God and His people.

Let me be careful here. There are a lot of people out there saying “God judged the gulf coast and God did some good by destroying things there.” First off, that’s stupid any way you look at it. Socially, theologically, and practically. While God is sovereign over His creation we simply do not know if God judged the gulf coast. Secondly, the storm didn’t destroy New Orleans really bad areas. That theory is stupid and I’m not saying that at all.

Here’s what I mean about God being good. Theologically, I don’t agree with my title. God is never at His best since He is immutable… Unchanging and unchangeable. But what I mean is that God has been richly showing Himself to those effected. Take Mike for example.

Mike. We met Mike in a truck stop parking lot in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He wasn’t seeking anyone out, but we started talking to him and he started to tell his story. He had lost everything. Living just 3 blocks from the ocean, he admitted that he didn’t take the warnings seriously and didn’t leave home. When the storm surge came they tried to wait it out before realizing that their house was going to flood to the roof. He put his daughter and his wife in a small boat and tied the boat to his son and himself. Somehow they made it to a nearby highway and safety. He had lost everything, but get this: He was praising God! He told us how his family had never been closer. They had nothing but they were rich. God had protected him, he knew it, and he decided right then to start living his life for God. As he told his story, tears welled up in my eyes. This man had nothing to his name… But was happy with what God was doing in his life!

There were a lot of stories like Mike’s in Mississippi. I don’t mean this to sound like I am belittle those who are suffering… Not at all. But I do think the story we can focus on right now is the tremendous things God is doing in the gulf coast area through His people.

Yesterday was the day. We met at the Century 21 office at 10:00 am on Friday and we were officially homeowners by 11:30 am. It was amazing how smooth this whole thing went. Even better, we get to start moving in just 8 days. Just like that we left 8 years of renting behind and started building a little equity. It was an amazing feeling for Kristen and I.

What does this mean for us? At this point, I can only imagine what it means for us. For one thing, we get a lot more space. We have a permanent place that we can decorate and take care of all ourselves. While I am certain this new address will add some frustrations and will definitely hurt us with all the new costs we’ve never paid before… but it is our place. My kids can grow up there and it just feels like home. We can’t wait to start this new stage in life.

In other news. Paul suddenly got sick last night. He’s had a fever since last night. I took him for a walk last night as it was cooling off so he could get fresh air, etc. It definitely lifted his spirits… but he fell asleep on the way back and was really groggy when we got home. Megan was happy with the walk as well since we ended up going to Dairy Queen. You know Paul is sick when he turns down food!

ND today? Being an Irish fan in Wolverine country is awful fun today. Can’t wait until my Irish pound the U of M gang on their home turf.

Garage sales… With a new house looming and a massive list of crap we need… we’re headed out this morning in search of treasures.

I got a chance to watch this a little bit in Northern Ireland this summer. Since I was 80% asleep each time I tried to watch this… and I couldn’t find it anywhere in town… I just went ahead and bought it on Amazon tonight.

Our Northern Ireland team will appreciate getting together and enjoying some truly odd humor.

If you’ve never heard of this and doin’t mind some adult… cough cough… funny stuff, check it out.

This is just a glimpse of the work to be done all over the gulf coast. We were led to this backyard [husband and wife in their 80s] by a local man at the church who asked us if we could help them out. When we arrived there, the backyard was covered in pine tree branches and about 2-3 inches of pine straw. It took our team about an hour to completely clean the roof and backyard.

To me, the story in the gulf coast isn’t the storm anymore. The real story is seeing how the communities are helping one another and making life better, person on person. Hattiesburg was a perfect example… Even though they had so much damage on their hands they were mostly worried about finding small areas of the area and getting them supplies. In the neighborhood we worked in, 90% of the work had been done by neighbors. One neighbor helping another to help life get back to normal.

Take for instance where we went. This was an “un-official” distribution center that was supplementing aid from the big dogs like the Red Cross. This was a neighborhood that had figured out how to take care of themselves. A local priest made some phone calls and figured out how to help people in his town. I mean, we drove 36 hours to take them water… Whoa.

When we arrived we we told that the supplies we were bringing were desperately needed since many areas had no fresh water. The night before we arrived a man had been shot and killed at a similar distribution center over a case of water. Something similar happened over a generator as well. People were getting desperate and their impatience was starting to wear through. As we got to Laurel, MS we pulled over to the side of the highway and covered all of our supplies “just in case.” We had heard of car-jackings and things like this… So this scared us just a few miles from arriving.

But then something cool happened as we came into town… the power turned on. The people who had just been hanging out suddenly went inside to enjoy some AC. By the time we left something like 60% of the town had power back on. All of this made it much easier to do what we came for. We were told we might have a hard time getting to the church, we even arranged for a police escort… But we didn’t need it. God had that arranged for us.

What about the army? Yeah, as we came into Mississippi we started seeing convoys of the 82nd Airborne rolling into the gulf coast. It was both encouraging and scary. I thought “how big is this thing?” It’s big and it is clear that they will need all the help they can get, even from the army, to get things under control. As I thought about it I realized how perfect these military groups were to handle such a tragedy. They have the experience and equipment to make it work.

So… There is more to tell and reflect on. But I wanted to get down some of my initial thoughts.

We arrived back from Mississippi about 12:00 PM today. It was a long, long trip… one which I plan on sharing more on later. Let’s just say that the story that is going on down there is serious, but the REAL story is that millions of people are helping those in need within the different communities. People helping people won’t make the news, but it is incredible to have been a part of that.

House news We close on the Bailey house in the morning. We have everything taken care of and we just need to sign the documents to finalize everything.

Dude, I got a Dell My new laptop arrived in the mail today. Ooo… too much fun!

Mission to Hattisburg complete. We are tired and on our way back to Romeo.

The small distribution center we are making deliveries to. God is doing amazing things as the people come together to help one another.

We are here.

I forgot how big our country is. We are in N. ALABAMA now. No visible damage yet. But we are seeing tons of other relief caravans. 300 miles to go. More when it gets light.

We are finally in KY. Still have a long way to go. Whoa just saw a major accident!