Monday, November 5, 2012

Taking Disaster Supplies to Brooklyn

On Thursday November Second we began the process of transporting disaster buckets to St Peter's Lutheran in Brooklyn New York. We rounded up the bibles we had. Some were being marked some were stored in another area. We determined we were about 90 Bibles short of having one bible for every bucket, so we went and purchased 2 more cases of bibles. We were short quite an few mops and brooms, so we went to the two nearby Dollar tree around and bought out there brooms and mops. We Rented a U-Haul truck and brought it to the church and Began to load it. Our Quilters decided they wanted to send their quilts with us. They bagged up 100 quilts and they were loaded into the truck.  We Took 356 Buckets with a devotional inside., 362 Bibles, and 100 quilts.

Friday Morning we set out on our 1600 mile drive at 6:00 A.M. Central time. We drove through North East Texas Arkansas and Tennessee, before stopping at 11:20 Eastern Time. We got up Saturday Morning at and were on the road again by 6:15, and Drove to as far as Bethlehem, PA before hitting our first problem. We exited the highway to get gas only to find a very long  gas line. We decided to drive a little farther of the highway to see if we could find a shorter line. The road curved around and went back to Allentown were we found a shorter line. We got in line, and thirty minutes later were back on the road. We found a Wendy's, grabbed a quick lunch (It was already 3:00) and got back on the road an hour and a half and 8 miles back from were we exited.We cruised in to Brooklyn with the only other problem being New York Knicks Basketball traffic. We were met by Jose Pineda and a group of eager youth who helped us unload. We unloaded the truck, then I lead the group in a short devotion and prayer, then we returned the truck to U_hauls after hours drop off and walked back to the St Peter's,stopping to pick up what I was told is the best pizza in Brooklyn.

We slept at the church. We were fed Bagels, hot tea and coffee before being taken to the airport. Our flight was delayed, but we arrived at Charlotte, NC just in time to board the flight to Dallas. We were in the airport less than 10 minutes. We arrived in Dallas and had our luggage by 5:00.

We enjoyed talking with the youth at St Peter's about their experiences with the storm and about Brooklyn in general. They helped us take are personnel belongings inside. When I pulled my cowboy boots out of the truck one of the boys exclaimed," hey, this guy really is from Texas!"Many of them had to hold the boots, some had never seen cowboy boots up close before.
Loading the Truck




Driving to Brooklyn

Unloading at St Peter's Lutheran

The Unloading Crew

Thursday, November 1, 2012

After Superstorm Sandy

As the days pass after Super Storm Sandy, the list of damage continues to grow. It is obvious that it will take years for total recovery to occur along the Eastern Coast.

Tomorrow, I will be heading to Brooklyn to deliver Disaster Buckets to St Peter's Lutheran Church. I am still looking for someone to ride along with me, so if you are interested, let me know. I will post some pictures and information when we return.

The Lutheran Church is on the groung in New York and New Jersey finding out what needs are and how they can help. We will continue to collect disaster buckets and plan to make a second trip in a week or so.

Below is a post to a video from LCMS President Rev Harrison on our response to this disaster
http://video.lcms.org/archives/1483