A day of rest...NOT

Sunday, May 29
     I was planning on attending a church service, after all, I was working in a chruch.  However, God had other plans.  I found my way to the office at College Heights and ran into Deb Hafer.  Now she, her husband and my parents went to college together so she has known me since I was in diapers.  She turned to the ladies in the office and informed them that I was "top notch" and a hard worker so give me a good job.  The ladies handed me a computer.  HA.  Now mind you I'm an English teacher and know just enough about computers to be dangerous.  I was then informed I needed to figure out what the last guy who had the computer had been doing with all the data on the people who had come through the distribution center for assistance.  WHAT!
     My first task was to actually find the file - no one had thought to ask the fella for the name of said file.  Hunt and peck.  Hunt and peck.  Stupid thing could be anywhere, but not in the Tornado section where everything else was.  Finally, I found it.  Would you believe when that thing popped open it was in some form with columns and numbers and stuff.  Uh, it's all Geek...I mean Greek to me!  And then it happened....
     Acts 2:1-4 "And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.  And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance."
     Yes, I just suddenly understood what was on the screen in front of me and I knew how to enter the data, group things, save and transfer.  I'm pretty sure if you looked really hard a flame was flickering over my head because I've never even opened a file like that before.  I'm lucky to get my grades entered online.  I thought it was pretty cool that God speaks computer!  For the next 12 hours I entered hundreds of families' data.  God enabled me to do a job that at that moment no one else could do.  And I did it with no eye exhaustion or migraines (which often plague me when I work for a long time on a computer).



     In the midst of all the paperwork, I also helped families shop.  We served nearly 300 families with 170 of them between 4 and 7 p.m. Every time I was sure we would be overwhelmed bye the vast amount of people, another volunteer would appear and say "Do you need some help?"  Once again, God's provision.  By the end of the day, I knew every part of our little (and I say that with dripping sarcasm because it took up half the church) shopping operation.
    Despite the influx of people we were still able to give these families individual attention.  Getting a family through takes anywhere from 45minutes or longer.  That's plenty of time to learn their names, their history, their story.  It's plenty of time to love them, hug them, pray with them and sometimes even cry with them. 

    Yes, I said cry...which I did for the third                 
day in a row.  I cried over the vast amount
 of names on paper going through my fingers.
  These are people who have lost all they
know...their homes, jobs, keepsakes and
 sometimes a loved one.  I had to stop every
 once in a while and just pray over a handful
of papers for the families they represented and
 for the strength to continue.

   

      One family in particular sticks in my mind and heart.  The three little girls had come in with their grandma.  She told me their story.  The girls had been in St. John's Hospital (which you remember was totally destroyed) when the tornado hit.  They made it to a relatively safe place, but were caught up in the horror of it all. 

     They all had scrapes and bruises from flying debris and the littlest girl was going to have to have one finger amputated at the first knuckle because of an injury to it, but amazingly that was the extent of their injuries.  As I'm kneeling there listening to grandma, patting her arm in reassurance and hugging hose little girls, grandma says, "I want you to hear something."  She turns to the oldest girl who couldn't be any older than my daughter who is ten and told her to sing it.
    This little girl whose cuts and bruises were just beginning to heal, who was dressed in a dirty shirt and mismatched shorts that were too small for her, whose hair looked like it hadn't been washed in days because they had no shampoo, this little girl began to sing.  Her tentative, sweet voice filled the hall where we stood and the noise of those around us stilled as they all stopped to listen. 

    

 I was walking home from school on a cold winter's day
Took a shortcut through the woods and I lost my way
It was getting late and I was scared and alone
Then a kind old man took my hand and led me home
Mama couldn't see him, but he was standing there
But I knew in my heart, he was the answer to my prayers

Oh I believe there are angels among us
Sent down to us from somewhere up above
They come to you and me in our darkest hours
To show us how to live
To teach us how to give

   As she stood there singing Angels Among Us, I cried...as did several of the other listeners both volunteer and survivor alike.  When she was done she looked up at me and said, "I know there were angels.  They kept us safe."  I cried because of the simple beauty of the dirty, little girl before me.  I cried for her loss of innocence.  I cried for her little sister's finger.  And I cried because through all the terrible, terrifying moments of her Sunday evening crouching in a hallway of flying debris, she saw angels!