Grab your tribe and help your neighbors
Grab your tribe and get ready to help your Florida neighbors. Get your church group, or your group of friends, or family together to help Panama City, Florida. What an incredible experience we just had! Thank you so much to our child care clients for allowing us this week to volunteer. We joined other volunteers and worked together with Samaritan’s Purse on clean up efforts in the Panama City area. Hurricane Michael hit Panama City on October 10th, 2018. We just served December 31st, 2018 - January 4, 2019. Almost 3 months later it is like their lives are in a stand still. In many areas in Panama City it is like it just happened. Trees are sometimes still on top of the roof. Trees are twisted and snapped in half all over the area. Metal sheets wrapped around trees. The devastation is so widespread and overwhelming. We could see the damage when we were just a few minutes from I-10, more than an hour from Panama City. The closer you get to Panama City, the more you see every residence, every business, affected by the storm. Metal roofs pealed back. Tile roofs missing tiles. Trees on roofs, cars, strewn across yards, or piled in huge piles. These people need help to move on so they can return to normal lives. Many of them cannot live in their homes due to the condition of their home. Some of them are living in their damaged, mildew filled home because they have no where else to go. It is very humbling to see someone living in a tent because their is a huge tree across their house and its not safe to enter.
There is no cost to the homeowners for Samaritan's Purse to help them. Simply showing them God’s love as we mudout (remove furnishings, saturated sheet rock, flooring, walls, and more). their saturated homes, cover their leaking or roofless home with a tarp, putting fences back up, and removing the trees and debris to the roadside for FEMA to pick up with their large trucks.
People from all over are volunteering their time and efforts. Samaritan’s Purse has experienced team leaders that safely lead the volunteers and make sure they have the right equipment for the job. Our team leader, Norm, always had a smile on his face and made it much more fun with his great attitude. Reminding us often that taking time to visit with the homeowners is as important as doing the clean up. Every homeowner I spoke with expressed they felt so overwhelmed with the amount of debris and didn’t know where to begin. As we cut up fallen tree trunks, and removed the branches you could almost see a weight lifted off the homeowner. Spring returned to their steps. Smiles slowly returned to their eyes. What a blessing to witness hope being renewed. I encourage you to click on the links to sign up and volunteer. They accept day volunteers, and longer (3 days required for free lodging and food). One day I captured a sea of volunteers at breakfast.
It was heartwarming to see a sea of orange shirts, men and women, ready to head out to sites and assist homeowners with picking up the pieces so they could have hope that their is an end in site. They will be able to have a normal life again one day. My plea is for others to volunteer and give hope to the residents of Panama City. Be that hope for someone. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles.
Psalms 34:17 -18 NLT
http://bible.com/116/psa.34.17.nlt
Click here to sign up! - click Respond Now
There is no cost to the homeowners for Samaritan's Purse to help them. Simply showing them God’s love as we mudout (remove furnishings, saturated sheet rock, flooring, walls, and more). their saturated homes, cover their leaking or roofless home with a tarp, putting fences back up, and removing the trees and debris to the roadside for FEMA to pick up with their large trucks.
People from all over are volunteering their time and efforts. Samaritan’s Purse has experienced team leaders that safely lead the volunteers and make sure they have the right equipment for the job. Our team leader, Norm, always had a smile on his face and made it much more fun with his great attitude. Reminding us often that taking time to visit with the homeowners is as important as doing the clean up. Every homeowner I spoke with expressed they felt so overwhelmed with the amount of debris and didn’t know where to begin. As we cut up fallen tree trunks, and removed the branches you could almost see a weight lifted off the homeowner. Spring returned to their steps. Smiles slowly returned to their eyes. What a blessing to witness hope being renewed. I encourage you to click on the links to sign up and volunteer. They accept day volunteers, and longer (3 days required for free lodging and food). One day I captured a sea of volunteers at breakfast.
Psalms 34:17 -18 NLT
http://bible.com/116/psa.34.17.nlt
Click here to sign up! - click Respond Now
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