Long but interesting

This is a long email but definitely worth reading. Unedited:

"It was great to see your trip was such a success.

I have been task to try and motivate volunteers from my own Church to join a mission trip to Gulfport at the end of May.

So I have been scouring your Random Topics2 blog trying to find the right things to say.
I was crushed to read about Jerre's passing. My wife pointed out what a blessing it was though that in the end he was not alone.That God had sent him companions and hope.

I hope that you or someone is encouraging ALL of the students who went to document their stories. Even what might seem to them to be a small thing that they did for a stranger could bring hope to others and inspiration to those who feel that the world has grown cold. Perhaps there is an energetic student/computer geek on campus there who could put together an on-line "Volunteer's Story Corps" type project.

God is sending normal everyday people to the coast to deliver his blessings and grace and I'd hate for those tales to be lost.

We had another such incidence with a small group that went down a few weeks ago. They were to do a roofing job but when they got to the site they decided that the pitch was just too steep for them (hey, they're volunteers not super heroes!) so they decided to go to the next house on the list. They were well underway when the homeowner pulled up and was overcome.
They sat and talked with him. He was an elderly gentle man with a cane who had ridden out the storm in his house. The water rose and rose and when he was finally standing in neck deep water on top of his stove and holding his small dog up out of the water, he said he couldn't take it anymore and he had prayed out for God to just kill him quickly. At that point apparently the water stopped rising and suddenly went out!
Now move foreword in time. It is nearly 6 months later and he is still in his ruined house. Depressed and hopeless he remembered how he had been saved when he cried out. So that morning he had gone to church to pray for help. It wasn't clear to me that it was his church or if he even attended on but he had gone to one that morning. When he returned to his house he found strangers putting a new roof on it.
I was not part of that crew but I know how humbling and awesome it is to find yourself as part of that sort of story.

When you share your stories from the Gulf with people now, do you ever find yourself listening to what you are telling them and thinking ... this all sounds so terribly overdramatic. More and more I find myself tempted to water down what I saw and was a part of ... or not even talk about it at all because it all seems so overdone. That's what it's like down there though. I guess for us the phrase "beyond belief" has new meaning.

Two more random thoughts.
1) This may be the first time in history that 10s of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of students have invaded the Gulf Coast for Spring Break ... and left it in better condition then they found it.

2)The on going relief effort on the Gulf Coast may well be the largest mobilization of (non war related) volunteers in US History ... and it is going largely unnoticed by the nation! I am basing this by the posts and links I am reading on your blogs as well as other places.

In the third week of March alone, Westminster Presbyterian Church in Gulfport reported they had coordinated 220 people from around the US and Ontario. This included a Presbyterian relief group from Pennsylvania that has made a 5 week commitment and also 150 Jewish college students.
The following week they were expecting another 135 Jewish college students who were planning to complete 12 to 15 roofs and build an entire home from the ground up.

I don't believe this lack of mass media coverage is some sort of plot but rather the nature of what we do. Being volunteer groups our focus is not in recognition but in helping. Even if we did want to shine a light on the effort, very few of these private groups have "PR" departments.
I know there is some coverage but it usually surrounds a single event or group. To my knowledge there is no "Official" agency that is keeping track of how many and from where these volunteers are streaming.

I wonder if it would parallel the WPA programs at the end of the great depression?
Maybe I can get hold of a NOVA producer at WGBH and get them interested in that aspect.

Once again, it's human beings being selfless in mass quantities ... I hate to see that not get some exposure.

Well, I've rambled long enough.
Thanks for keeping up the blog.

Gary"