Partners on Mission

You know if you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute .... that is the procrastinator's motto .... It works so long as nothing more compelling demands your time. I started this update yesterday in the Reagan National Airport on our way back from helping Martie's aunt and uncle in Beltsville, MD. for a few days. That's when I started getting phone calls about Gustav .... The bottom line is that I have a compelling reason to not complete the update as intended.

Today, it appears that Gustav will build to a Category 3 hurricane by Monday and make landfall on the Gulf Coast by Tuesday. The good news is that we don't have any volunteers down here right now. Today we are packing our important papers ... some critical equipment that we will need after the hurricane passes - generator, chain saw, come-along (it's like a mini winch if you are wondering), rope, compressor, axe, shovels ... well you get the idea and securing the buildings. Folks from Sylvarena Baptist Church, Wesson MS and Eclectic, AL are coming down to pull the campers out of here as well as the majority of our tools.

The challenge of knowing how and when to respond to a hurricane is that hurricanes are only marginally predictable ... But after Katrina ... most folks are not taking any chances on waiting too long. Sylvarena BC (only about 2 hours away from here) has offered to open their doors to people as a shelter so we are contacting folks in Hancock County that we are connected with to let them know about the offer and to ensure that they are indeed planning to evacuate.

When we were in Ocean Springs in 2005 right after Katrina ... Hurricane Rita followed only two weeks later. One of the services we provided was a medical clinic that was staffed, in part, by nurses from Oregon or Washington State. The forecast was that Rita would be hitting Biloxi - right next to us. One night at about 7:00 pm, the nurses started going out the front door dragging their suitcases behind them. I asked a nurse , "Where are you going?" With tears in her eyes, she told me that they were told to evacuate to Montgomery. Now we had over 100 shelter residents and the church was surrounded by tents. So I asked ... who is supposed to help these folks if we leave? She said "I'm sorry" and then left, but we stayed. Rita, if you recall, turned West and hit the Texas-Louisiana coast. That is the struggle of our preparing to evacuate .... Not should we go but when should we go.

It might be that Gustav fizzles out .. or turns elsewhere ... but the decision to take action has to be made before the roads are clogged with people evacuating. Right now, our priority is to contact people to let them know about the shelter then to get ourselves and our equipment out of here not later than tomorrow or Saturday ... BTW, tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

We will update you after the storm passes. Please be in prayer for the people here. It is possible that everything that has been done over the past three years with respect to rebuilding can be taken away again, in a day. But I know that although the grass withers and the flowers fade, the Word of the Lord endures forever. The imperishable seed that has been planted here will survive any storm ... Glory to God.

	Pathfinder Mission, P.O. Box 3313, Bay St. Louis, MS 39521

	228-469-0507

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