We visited a High School in Woodlands, Texas being used as a shelter for the handicapped. Two days after Hurricane Rita struck, Cheerup International was there to bring love and laughter. The Lord helped us lift the spirits of this mature generation through our vivacious songs. They wanted to get out of their wheelchairs and dance with us.

Before leaving for Lafayette Louisiana, we all spent several days loading donated supplies into a container truck that was going to meet us in Lafayette.

(Below) This is the Cajun Dome in Lafayette Louisiana., temporary home to a 1,000 homeless people of Hurricane Katrina. A month after Katrina struck, the evacuees were forced to vacate again due to the ominous approach of Hurricane Rita. Now it holds victims of both Katrina and Rita.

(Below) Here, Daisy is comforting Lina who evacuated from New Orleans to Lafayette a month ago. Last week she had to evacuate from Lafayette because of Rita. Now she has returned to Lafayette and the Cajun Dome, where she is caring for her daughter, Lisa, who just went through a gall bladder operation.

Sometimes, just a listening ear or a few words of comfort or assurance are what make a difference to these souls. To let them know God cares and He knows everything that they are going through. Lina told Daisy that she is a Christian, but she felt lost and didn’t know how to approach God and that she didn’t know how to fight all the fears. She felt overwhelmed with worries and uncertainties. Daisy gave her an Activated magazine about why God allows suffering and then prayed with her. Asking God to give her a peace that wouldn’t fail (Is 26:3) and for God to release His Care upon her life.

(Below) Here we are singing to on-looking Red Cross officials outside the Cajun Dome. We were accompanied by a New Orleans resident that was already serenading his fellow citizens with his delightful clarinet playing.

Here, Daisy and Robert are talking to a one month resident of the Cajun Dome. He told us he knows his house was flooded badly and he’s leaving for the first time next week to see what’s left.

We’ve been visiting the shelter at Kelly air force base every day to spend time with the evacuees, talk with them and offer comfort and prayer. We’ve heard many stories from the evacuees of how they have lost everything. They said that when the levees broke water rushed into their homes like a wave; about as fast as 4-5 feet per minute. One man, David, told us of how he and 30 other people were trapped in a church because of the floods. He told of how he swam the length of a football field to a boat in-order to rescue his friends. He went on to tell how he rescued others nearby that were also trapped in their homes. He said that day was like a movie or a “bad dream”, and he thanks the Lord that he lived to see today.

Weve also been asking folks how their stay at the shelter has been, what they are planning on doing from here on out, and whether they would stay in San Antonio or go back to New Orleans. Most of the people we spoke with said they would stay in San Antonio for at least a year or so. We have also been offering to pray for each individual and their situation that the Lord would help them through this difficult time and supply all their needs.

It’s been lots of fun to spend time helping to entertain the children at the shelter by playing jump-rope, basketball, and passing out the beautiful posters of heaven. Even the information officer that was with us had fun. She said it felt good to be able to spend some time with the people themselves, instead of doing the more technical work she’s involved in most of the time.

(more…)

We are so thankful that the Lord answered our prayers and spared much of Texas from Rita’s fury. Nevertheless, a lot of damage was done, and we have once more been very busy at the emergency shelters. At the beginning of the week, we helped process a lot of requests for aid and assistance for evacuees from the Beaumont/Port Arthur region, while the teens helped in the pantry and kitchen.

Then mid week, an urgent request arrived to send help to Jasper, a town not so far from our mission center which was hit quite hard. Lex met with the man overseeing relief work there, and we will send a team to help shortly. Lex said the town looked like a bomb site with hundred of trees and electric poles blown over. They expect it could takes as long as three months for electricity to be restored. Amazingly, hardly any trees fell on houses, and everyone there is saying that it’s a miracle! We believe it is! Then another phone call! This time, a couple in Minnesota wants to donate their camper trailer to victims of Hurricane Katrina and someone needed to go and pick it up. So Lex is driving up there now and hopes to return by Sunday, and then off to Jasper Monday! The camper will be donated to a family made homeless by Katrina.

(more…)

We went to an old Wal-mart which had been set up as an evacuation center for people from Houston fleeing Hurricane Rita. We worked for a few hours setting up a food court for 2000+ evacuees to eat lunch. It consisted of unloading and sorting boxes of food, drinks and household supplies, setting up tables and then organizing plates of drinks/snacks, and helping serve the food during the food line.

The place had just opened that day and was pretty disorganized, so the San Antonio Fire Department, who were in charge and trying to get things organized were very appreciative of us being there to help. Dr. Chris accompanied us as well and was able to greatly assist the medical station. She told us afterward of many lives saved and patients that were grateful of her being there and even the other nurses were thankful for her support and encouragement. (This particular shelter was housing about 250 mentally/physically handicapped people.)

We also met a young college student from San Antonio who was volunteering alongside us for the day. We explained that we are fulltime missionaries with the Family International and told him a bit about lives of service to the Lord. We told him our main goal was to minister to people spiritually and that any physical assistance we could offer was secondary to that.

Later in the day we went to the Kelly shelter and were able to continue ministering to the evacuees there. We witnessed to people, listened to them tell us their stories of how their experience at the evacuee site has been so far as well as how Katrina has effected them. We talked to them about how the Lord as been using this disaster to work in many people’s lives, drawing them closer to Him and reminding them of His promise that “All things work together for good to them that love God”.(Romans 8:28)
People were, for the most part, easy to talk to and willing to tell us about their experiences.

Nick, Joanna and Chris joined Karen, Rose and John to minister to evacuees at the Kelly Center in San Antonio.

We went as teams to the zones that were made up of large rooms where the evacuees are housed. Nick and I visited the evacuees at their cots, spending time with them on an individual basis. Most people responded when we offered to pray for them, and they talked then even more. We prayed with everyone we talked with, listened to them and then gave them a copy of the Activated Magazine, “Why Suffering”. While Nick was talking with one man, a little boy had been following me around so I spent time with him as he was just wandering around unattended. Then a little girl came and sat on my knee holding on to me, and she just wanted to be held. Eventually, after a while she started to talk a little, she just needed some TLC.

The next day Nick called into the center, explaining that we had a missionary doctor, Dr. Chris, who was up on a visa trip from Mexico. When they heard how many volunteers we had and that we had doctor as well, they stressed that more help was needed at a shelter they were just opening at an old Wal-Mart building.

Upon arriving, we found out that these were among the 3 million people evacuating the Texas gulf coast, trying to escape Hurricane Rita. They too had to be taken care of. As we were leaving at the end of our day there, I found out that they were 2,9OO people come into the shelter. The shelter was very new and there was so much to organize, so the young people on our team, Andrew, Chris, Liz and John helped set up the newly formed dining room and food line from a totally empty storage room, while Joanna helped set up the registration place.

Dr. Chris came in and she had quite a few people to take care of, as when we arrived there was no doctor, in fact there wasn’t even a first aid kit, just an empty medical room. Eventually there were some medical students that came in to a help, a home guard doctor later on, and finally medical supplies. Many people came sick, and tired, as the highways were so full for some the drive from Houston took 18 hours.

We had an opportunity to minister to and pray with almost every single person at the Kelly Center. We met one woman who asked for prayer as her young daughter was missing. She has not been able to locate her 5 year old daughter since the first day. Our hearts really felt for her, while words sometimes fail, we know that her faith and prayers will help her through this time. This woman and her other daughter received Jesus along with another 6 children today. Many people today expressed frustration, as they want to leave the shelters but the housing takes time.

On Sunday we ran into Denarold & Alaina at the Arena. They are part of the Simon Family that we met on Friday. They were happy to see us and immediately wanted to talk. Denarold had witnessed many terrible events including a murder at the Convention Center in New Orleans and couldn’t get it out of his head. He told us about it in great detail. After we talked and prayed together we read some of the Activated Magazine on why God allows suffering, you could see a noticeable change in him. We gave the Simon family our mailing address to stay in touch. They lost everything in the flood and we want to give them copies of the pictures we took of them to start a new photo album and we also plan to continue sharing God’s Word with them through the mail.

Leroy, (below) was full of praise for his delivery from Katrina and shared his great concern for the lost youth of New Orleans. He suffered an unfortunate accident while on the job 2 years ago that left him debilitated. When he prayed to receive Jesus all of his pent up emotion was released and we comforted him as he wept. We read part of the “Why Suffering” Activated magazine with him and left him with a smile on his face that said it all.

Rob (below), is of Scottish descent, and had been raised by Catholic nuns. For some time he only talked about his new job and money he was owed. We slowly, carefully steered the conversation to spiritual things and eventually he prayed to receive Jesus. Immediately he changed and we spent about an hour answering his questions on salvation, temptation and the end time. When we left he said, “thank you for coming by, I really needed to talk to someone and understand.” His eyes filled with tears and we left him thanking the Lord for another victory!

The last weekend of the Astrodome/Reliant shelters was the weekend of September 16th, 17th, & 18th. The residents had been given notice that the shelter was closing and everyone had to be out by Tuesday the 21st. Tensions were quite high over this issue and there had been several incidents. Fema closed its desks early and left altogether.

We had just received the donated Activated Magazines “Why Suffering” and were thrilled to be able to have something really feeding for all the hurting people. So we went bed-to-bed or rather cot-to-cot with the Activated magazines listening, praying with and counseling the people.

One Friday just before everyone was moving from the Reliant Center to the Arena, I met the Simon family (See picture below) They were so sweet but all very sad because during the evacuation of New Orleans, their uncle/brother was being air lifted off of the roof of his house and he had a heart attack and died. His wife and daughter were devastated! He was only in his mid 50’s and hadn’t been sick before. Sheila, his sister, is a real believer & very positive. She said she knew in her heart that her brother was in a better place now. I spent a long time with her and talked to each one of them letting them unload the burden of their grief and the trauma of the events that they had witnessed at the Superdome. I read to them some of the answers to their questions right out of the Activated magazine. God’s Word was so powerful and really comforted their aching hearts. I asked if I could pray for them and we all stood in a big circle right there. First, for their needs, and then they all prayed to receive Jesus as their personal Savior. It was such a beautiful time of emotional healing for them all!

We decided to brave the storm here in Houston. When we prayed together we received the verse, “…and He arose and rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm!”

We awoke the next day to give thanks to God for keeping us safe and for weakening the storm! Rita was at one time the 3nd most powerful storm in American history and was headed straight for us! Thank the Lord, he weakened it and diverted it!

We were anxious to set off for the shelters with guitar, singers, clowns, posters and Activated magazines! We met the superintendent of over 70 high schools in the Houston area. He had made an instant decision to turn 7 of his high schools into makeshift shelters for evacuees from Hurricane Rita. One in particular we sang at took in over 100 elderly victims! It was touching to see the love and concern shown to these elderly, as they need so much extra care. My heart has been broken as so many elderly have lost their lives due to Katrina and Rita. In New Orleans, whole nursing homes were abandoned during Katrina, leaving the elderly to their fate. Rita took the lives of 25 elderly on a bus inbound to Dallas.

It brought real joy to my heart to be able to pray with all these precious people, knowing their time is short and now they all have their “passport to heaven,” JESUS! One old gentleman brought tears to my eyes, as he held my hand and sang along with us! He knew all the words to the songs, even though they said he had Alzheimer’s disease. Together we sang, “This little light of mine,” “Twist and Shout” and “You are my Sunshine.” He was so funny holding up his “light” (index finger,) and dancing the twist from his wheelchair!

The red cross workers and volunteers enjoyed the show as much as the victims, and we were able to leave them all with copies of the Activated magazine, “Why suffering?” The superintendent said at first he couldn’t believe his ears….as he thought, “Is that music I’m hearing?” He said we just made his day as it had been up for about 40 hours dealing with the crisis. He said a lot of families they took in to the shelters just couldn’t go any further as they ran out of gas, food and water on the highway! One family I talked with personally were in gridlock traffic for 16 hours, from Texas city to Galveston, a trip that would normally take an hour!