RUMC DARE Testimonials. |
The DARE Experience
Testimonial.
DARE Mission Trip
June 21-24 2019
Trip members included;
Richard Lowenthal, Laurie Cullen, David Page, Ann Gordon and Rusty Gordon with a special guest appearance from Neal Reynolds on Sunday morning.
The team cast off at 7:00 on Friday morning and arrived in Panama City at the worksite around 12:30. The last 45 minutes of the ride confirmed our grave concern that this location had become out of sight and out of mind for our country because it was not a wealthy area and lacked political influence.
We were greeted by Johnathan Gibbons and his uncle Tom and friendships seemed to form in minutes. We soon discovered that Jonathan works as a part time Audio Visual Tech at Lynn Haven church. RUMC and Lynn Haven have hosted each other’s youth groups for mission work in the last couple of years. Later that weekend we would visit Lynn Haven Methodist for a jaw dropping walkabout. This was a large modern steel framed church which was totally destroyed, and the site of the destruction nearly defies belief. The story of this trip would become us realizing how much needed to be done and how badly people needed to know others cared, a full eight months after the event.
Jonathan shared his family’s story of how they had decided to ride out the hurricane in Jacksonville, Florida with friends and watched dejectedly as Michael, one of the three strongest hurricanes to ever make landfall in America slammed into their community. In fact, when television footage was displayed much of it was coming from just around the corner from their home and their mother and grandparents’ homes, two small but attractive single level cinder block homes.
They feared the worst of the worst and, when they arrived, they did find large trees on their homes and breaches in the roofs, ceilings and some windows yet the properties looked like they could be restored. However, the worst was when they began looking for help and relief and discovered that the house, where his 89-year-old grandparents lived with his mom, was not covered by insurance.
Here we are eight months later to assist in restoration. Although it was very hot and the home had no power or water, trees had been removed, the roof replaced, the house mucked and cleaned and it was ready for sheetrock…….on the ceilings! Over the next few days we worked diligently together with the family to sheetrock, mud, tape and sand a significant portion of the house. We tore out and repaired a few other troublesome spots fixing water damage and working to get water service inside of the home reestablished. During the many hydration breaks as we sat in the carport, we heard stories of the storm and the recovery including how grandma who is seriously ill and Don the granddad and Cathy the mom have been living in a 120 square foot trailer down the street for the last 8 months. Even more interesting were the stories of the rest of their lives. These included military service by grandpa in Alaska before it was a state and how Uncle Tom, who worked alongside us, was a true rocket scientist and had worked collaboratively with Elon Musk and significantly with the Air force and others. At dinner we learned what huge Braves fans they are, and we saw an amazing photograph that Jonathan took which is on display in the Smithsonian Natural Museum of History in Washington DC.
When we wrapped up our last day of work Sunday afternoon, we had finished sheetrocking the home, had restored water service and we were ready. Ready for what? Ready for the arrival of RUMC’s youth team who were coming to stay in the same Nazarene church we were in and pick up where we had left off.
However, one of the biggest treats of our trip was still ahead. David Page was a special member of our team. He was indeed a hard worker, skilled with precision hole cutting and blessed with a collaborative spirit, and interestingly he was not a member of our church. We had gotten to know David first when he visited our RUMC Job Networking ministry as a guest and then later as a hard-working volunteer at our RUMC Garage Sale.
It was there that we first heard the story of his bedridden mom and how she had refused to leave the Panama City area during the hurricane but chose instead to stay and pray. She shared her certainty that it was God’s provision that saved her home, the very home in which David grew up. A large tree fell across the back porch and destroyed a storage shed but her home was nearly untouched while the majority of the neighborhood was totally destroyed. In fact, many of the homes had already been bulldozed. We went to see “mama” and as they say she blessed our socks off. We saw the 10 x 12 room that David and his four brothers shared and the 10x 12 room that his five sisters shared some 40 years ago. We heard about her first hand experiences and how David and his brother and sister and nieces had taken care of her in ways she felt she didn’t deserve. Clearly, they saw mama differently, maybe more like God sees mama and at least for a moment, us too.
At 7:30 Sunday evening God blessed us yet again in a loud way! We greeted the arrival of the RUMC youth. We hugged youth leaders who had been youth when some of us were involved in the program years earlier and we also met the children of some of “our” youth who were now going on their own mission trip.
We worshipped together, shared stories together and were elated to tell them that one of their teams would be working with the Gibbons on a house that was waiting for them. Monday morning before returning to Atlanta we took them to the worksite, introduced them to our new friends and helped them get started sanding, cleaning, painting and replacing a chain link fence, in the brutal Florida sun, because a move in date is fast approaching.
We returned Monday afternoon knowing that our friends and our youth were both in good hands….God’s hands.
However, we must go back. Because that is where God is calling us, and also because we told mama we would. She said that would be good if she was still here.
All we know is we want to be wherever mama is and someday, wherever she is going.