A Mind For Missions

I recently got back from serving with a group of volunteers from the KNCSB disaster relief team. The KNCSB is the Kansas Nebraska convention of Southern Baptists, and I’m a part of their disaster relief team. When a disaster strikes any part of the untied states we have teams all around the country that answer the call to serve and love our neighbors.

I signed up with the disaster relief team and was on a chainsaw crew for 4 days cutting up trees in people’s yards that had been blown over by some straight line winds. An area of over 100 miles was impacted and there is still more work to be done there. Although my time there was relatively short it made a big impact on my life.

I have always been one to help people out, even before I was saved I was a volunteer firefighter. That’s part of that job and it’s one I’ve always taken seriously. Something about helping people in their toughest times gave me a sense of fulfillment. Now that I’ve been saved that sense of fulfillment has increased tenfold. So when I saw the email asking for people to serve in a couple weeks I jumped on it. And luckily it was during a plant shutdown at work so I didn’t have to lose any pay.

After each day I wrote down some noteworthy things that happened. It was a pretty eventful 4 days. One house had an unexpected amount of dogs living in the back yard. So that back yard we were working in turned into a sloppy poopy mess after it started raining. Trudging through the feeces filled mud wasn’t exactly something any of us were prepared for. It was my first trip so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but I was willing to do whatever was needed of me. I knew I was going to be moving brush and or cutting up trees and I was fully prepared for that.

Another thing I wasn’t fully prepared for were the reactions we got from the homeowners. All of them were grateful to receive help, a few of them were brought to tears. One lady in particular was a widow that lived with her disabled daughter. They were both being taken care of by the son of the widow. He had his own family but still managed to take care of them as well. That man was a selfless servant. We heard about this house from a neighbor. She had said that the son had been helping clean up some other houses in the neighborhood and hadn’t gotten to cleaning up the trees in his mom’s yard yet. So we went over there to offer help and get the paperwork done so we could proceed with the clean up. The trees in the back were pretty massive and the backyard was covered in limbs. Luckily we had a lot of people with us to tackle the job.

After this job was all said and done we went to talk to the son. Every place we clean up we talk with the homeowner, in this case the son, and pray with them. This one brought me to tears. The man didn’t want to ask for help but clearly had a full plate. He appreciated the work and the prayers. We try to show the love of Jesus though the work we do in disaster relief. Selflessly helping people in times of great struggle is one thing I take great care in doing.

Colossians 3:17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.