Remember Relief

Tonight I volunteered at my church for a Thanksgiving dinner for hurricane evacuees. I spent most of the evening visiting with a 20 year old woman displaced with her 3 year old son, husband, and her mother. We've all heard these stories, but I will never get used to them.

For this family, they evacuated from New Orleans to Baton Rouge during Katrina. Then, they left to Atlanta in anticipation of Rita. They found no assistance in Atlanta so they relocated to Houston. While he was away working, she, her son, and her mother, were robbed at gunpoint. Due to the robbery she missed her shift at work and was subsequently fired. They again moved, this time to another part of Houston. They are now trying to get settled, they need basic things like a coat for the baby and beds.

It's the most remarkable thing, sharing in the suffering of someone else. I am by no means anywhere close to experiencing what she has, but I sat down and let her talk and held her son and gave her food, and I tried to be there. I didn't do much to help the relief effort shortly after these storms hit, but I'll do something now. I am going to call this family and give them the material things I can and try to help them. Please hold me accountable to this, it would be so much easier to let it go. But it's too important. They are too important. And God is our relief.