Awana and Jeff
The church we’re staying at, hosts an Awana group, a children’s ministry. Some of us thought it was named after a native american word or something, but the founders of Awana derived the Awana name from the first letters of “Approved workmen are not ashamed” as taken from 2 Timothy 2:15 of the Bible.
An early morning breakfast and a devotional from Jeff, that was coincidentally based on 2 Timothy 2:15. he didn’t know why we were smiling, as he wasn’t part of our discussion from the night before.
Skip and RRR
We chose to pack into one big church van to make our rounds in meeting some of the local organizations.. Pastor Matt and Mike introduced us to Skip of RRR ranch, a pretty passionate man of God that genuinely loves trying to serve. He has some pretty creative projects going on at the ranch to help out people in crisis.
Frank and Lorraine
We also met Frank and Lorraine, victims of the recent hurricane. Tough story. Their home had originally been built for a tornado, but due to fire and reconstructions over the years, the most of the walls had been rebuilt without some of the tornado reinforcements. When the hurricane hit last year, their home was destroyed except for the last wall with the reinforcements. Looters also took some of their belongings, and both Frank and Lorraine are disabled. The new rebuild also includes an above-ground tornado shelter with easier disabled access
CBF
After lunch we visited with Chris of CBF. His temporary role became permanent in coordinating relief efforts in the area. We heard sobering information about the number of people that are uninsured for tornadoes, and even more so, recent earthquakes. He was a great resource of information and encouragement
OKC Memorial
We had enough time to run over to the OKC Memorial downtown. I have to admit, as Californians, we definitely remember the horrible bombing, but visiting the site was incredibly saddening. So many lives lost, so many children, and such a big part of the heart of this city died that day. Lorin noted the chain link fence attached to the memorial site had letters from family members to the ones lost in the bombing. One was from a girl, now 19 years older, writing to her mom. Lorin started to cry.
Dinner and Devotional
Laura cooked tacos for us tonight, and later joined us for our time of singing and sharing. Millie had us reflect on personal times of devastation whether by a tornado or otherwise, and God’s faithfulness.
We all shared about our impressions of first day of scouting.
-Some shared of personal feelings meeting with victims and the memorial,
-Others shared about gratefulness for others on the team,
-Some gave good input on the organizations we met today.
Thanks for your prayers
We’ve had people contact us, concerned for our safety with recent tornadoes. We’re fine. It’s about 100 miles away from us, but we can also see how unpredictable these storms are.
Within a period of 20 years, this area has suffered a major terrorist attack, frequent terrifying tornadoes, and more recently, increased earthquakes.
Yet they stay faithful. Yet they still have hope. But you can tell that hope is being drained at times. Pray for them, and pray that we can show them they are loved by God.
