Hurricane Gustav

Hurricane Gustav is currently hitting Louisiana and about 80 refugees from that area are sitting in our church's life center. We opened up for the first time as a Red Cross Shelter yesterday. Two years ago I signed up to help coordinate registration at the shelter when we first went through the process of becoming a shelter. Well of course I was called on to help, but I'm also 7.5 months pregnant.

It all worked out though and we opened yesterday afternoon. I stayed about 7 hours helping to coordinate the registration process. We learned a few things in our first try, but managed to smoothly get people settled. There was a lady who drove in with her family from LA who had just gone through a chemo treatment the day before. Then there was a family that came in with a 3 day old baby. Most had been on the road since about 5am and were just getting to Montgomery about 6-8pm. It was bumper to bumper traffic all the way.

Everytime I worked a hurricane from the TV station I wished I was in another place really helping people. This time I was, but will admit that I felt like I wasn't prepared to deal with issues like sickness, stress, and spanish speaking translation. I was grateful that many other more qualified people were there to respond to such needs.

It was neat to watch the nurses on hand from our church caring for the elderly ladies, the kids with coughs and the new mom to show her how to swaddle that little baby. Then there were the people who were experienced in all this as they moved here from LA after Katrina and could sit and pray and talk to the scared people who had never been in a shelter before. I also was impressed with our teens and younger kids who came with parents as they played ping pong and other games with the refugee kids even if they didn't all speak the same language well.

It really showed the hands, feet, and whole body of Christ reaching the hurting and helpless in the community. Now we are full and finished registering people we will just have to remain open til it's safe for everyone to go home. We'll be needing volunteers around the clock to help keep the facilities running and be with the people. (hint hint to anyone in the area. :) Right now with it being a holiday there is a good amount of volunteers, but tomorrow when everyone goes back to work people could get a bit scarce.