The Real Celebs of Disaster Relief

I am glad when celebrity types help during the immediate days after a disaster. I think everyone who can should help their neighbors during the days after a disaster. The press gets all over it and we hear about what all they are doing and how much money they are contributing. And I know that some do much more even after the cameras are gone. But just once I would like to see the media do a story on the real Celebs of Disaster Relief.

They are the ones who are still onsite at places in New York and New Jersey. Helping people rebuild their homes and their lives. They are the ones who uproot their own lives and spend months living in hotels and other types of housing to coordinate teams of volunteers and resources to assist the local people in getting their lives back to normal. Many of them are Southern Baptists. Others are not. All of them are just ordinary people doing extraordinary things in difficult places and times.

A group of our students and our associate David Wood are on their way today to New Jersey to assist the North Carolina Disaster Relief team for 10 days. They are planning on helping rebuild houses, but you never know what you will be called on to do until you actually get there. They will drive 16 hours today to get there and then on the back side of the trip make that same day long drive to get back home to Florida. They will pay their own way, sleep in tents most likely, and eat food prepared by volunteers in a disaster relief kitchen. They will work long days, sleep little, sweat a lot, and will talk about the fun they had forever when they get home.

Our students are not special. Well we think they are special, but they are just like other students around the country who have come or will come to help. They are skilled contractors, but they are willing to work hard and help the ones who are. They love people in Jesus' name. They want to help the churches in that area show that Jesus' love extends to the physical needs as well as the spiritual needs of people's lives. They are going because they can and because Jesus has called them to go on this trip. Would you join me in praying for them during this 10 day adventure in faith?

In my mind, they are the real Celebs of Disaster Relief!