“Many hands make light work”
This mantra can be heard on any given day at our house. I’d like to say that it was due to quick thinking and amazing parenting skills, but if I’m completely honest, I think it was out of the desperation of a mama with lot of little ones. It was an attempt to rally the troops to get a job done that I was too exhausted to complete myself. Regardless the origin, the phrase is heard quite a bit around here. Thankfully, it has proved itself to be true over and over again. It is true in the yard, in the house, carrying wood, putting away groceries and so much more. We have had the opportunity to use our “many hands” in the neighborhood, with family, friends, friends of friends and even strangers.
About two years ago, we were all sitting around our dinner table. Jordan and Desiree were visiting and Trevor and Ally were here as well. Which meant we were ALL here. All 14 of us. The noise level at dinner can be crazy and this evening was no different. Multiple conversations at one time covering everything from amusement parks to super heros. Disneyland versus California Adventure, Batman versus Spiderman. You get the picture. At some point the conversation turned to missions. These were a few of the questions that were asked, “What could God do with our family?” “How could God use our family to bless others?” What happened next was so amazing. All of the kids got so excited and started to express some incredible ideas. The younger ones were ready to pack their bags and go, the older ones were excited but knew it wouldn’t be right away, and us old fogies, overwhelmed by the upcoming college graduation of one son and the wedding of the other son, couldn’t look past those events to see what God had planned. It was fun to dream, but the reality is that we have bills and events and work and school....
Needless to say, we put our “God dream” on the back burner...for two years.
This year at Christmas, we got to sit down again at the dinner table. Once again the conversation turned toward God’s will for our family. We discovered that many of the ideas for service involved disaster relief and how we could help people who have experienced loss due to some natural disaster. We initially talked about just loading everyone up in the van, driving to the effected area, jumping out and helping people clean up their messes. We quickly realized that it probably wouldn’t be that easy and we would need some kind of training or clearance to get into the effected areas. After doing some research, we discovered that (no surprise) we were right. We had been learning in church that God calls ALL of us to serve others in His name and that we shouldn’t be so focussed on our circumstances that we become paralyzed and unable to pursue what God lays on our hearts. This is much easier said than done. Dan decided that we would begin to look into the areas God could use us...All of us! We believe that God is calling us as a family and we know that this would limit our possibilities. Jordan found a blog written by a man who had felt drawn to disaster relief as we were. He answered many of the questions that we had and helped us concentrate our efforts towards and appropriate end; serving others in the name of God.
First of all, in this blog he answered a few of the big issues that were holding us back; time and money. In order to go and serve, Dan, Jordan, Desiree, Trevor and Alyssa would all be needing to take time off of work. This bloggers answer to this was, you don’t know until you’ve tried. When he made it known at his place of employment what he was going to do, people stepped up and offered him their vacation days. And when it came to the money issue, he was shocked at how people came out of the woodwork to help financially. They also donated frequent flyer miles and hotel stays.
So with those questions addressed in this bog, we felt like we had the encouragement to move forward. Phase one is training. Dan and I are in the process of being CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) trained. When we finish this course, we will be certified to be first responders in the event of a large disaster that consumes the resources of that area. In other words if all of the firefighters, paramedics, police officers are being used, we will be put to work. We are learning the basics of triage, first aid, search and rescue and Incident command systems. CERT is a nationally recognized program and would allow us to help in any state in the nation.
The next step was to join an organization that was already recognized and welcomed to assist in a disaster. In our research we came across and organization called Hope Force International (HFI). Partnering with the Salvation Army, HFI goes into areas that have been affected by crisis and disaster and provide many different types of relief; medical, spiritual, physical and emotional. It has been so amazing to see how God has already equipped our family to be a perfect fit for HFI. They have a chaplain division which would be a great place for Jordan to use his pastoral skills. Desiree will be able to use her nursing skills in their medical division. Trevor has extensive training in all aspects of Emergency response including chain saw operation and fire suppression. Dan will be able to use his gifting to help assess injuries and apply first aid, and he may also be able to use his food distribution experience to help handle incoming donations. Alyssa’s dog training experience will help with animals in the area who have become homeless. As for me and the rest of the kids, we have LOTS of experience cleaning up messes and that’s what we will be doing!!
So what’s the next step? We need to attend HFI training in Washington and the two dates that are available are February 20-23 and August. We are going to try to make it to the February training so that we can be available this summer to be deployed, but in order to do that we need to raise some support. It will cost about $500 per person for travel and training. In order to cut costs, we are only planning on taking 6 of us for now.
We believe God is calling us to service and we would love for you to partner with us in two ways; Prayer and finances. In the past few weeks since we made these decisions, we have had some “speed bumps” that have come along and tried to derail our mission, yet we are determined to stay the course and make it to the training. Prayer for focus, finances, safe travel, and details. God knows our needs and is faithful. We believe he will resource what He calls, so we are asking you to support us financially as well. We have put a link on our blog where you will be allowed to donate online directly into our mission account. We would like to thank you ahead of time for your generosity and for your fervent prayers on our behalf. If you have any questions, feel free to comment or find me or any one of us on facebook.
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