What a month! – And it isn’t over yet.

 Pennsylvania, New York, Pennsylvania, Knoxville, Louisiana, Houston, home!

Hurricane Dorian and Tropical Storm Imelda.

We’ve been busy.  Busy traveling for ministry.  Busy catching up at home.  Busy connecting with people.  Busy being at the events where we should be.  And busy even in trying to have “down time”.  In the midst of all of this busyness, we realized we had not put out a newsletter in over six months.  And I realized we had not blogged in over three years.

Honestly, our newsletters are our blogging.  But, if I (Babette) can get disciplined in blogging here more often, the gaps in our newsletters will be easier to fill.  Since we just sent out a newsletter yesterday, the things I should be blogging about are technically covered.  But I know me.  I need to “strike while the iron is hot”.  If I wait until the timing might be better, I probably won’t start.

This past week was a reflection of being busy.  We arrived home Sunday night refreshed from our weekend camp ground stop outside of Lake Charles.  I spent time in the camper sewing.  Kevin spent time catching up on emails from Haggerty and other recreational types of emails.  Of course most of those were about cars, specifically vintage models.  He also did some assigned course work on which he got really behind.  And we listened to college football games, specifically Louisiana Tech’s game and LSU’s game.

It was nice to come home to extra hands to help us unpack.  Adriano and Jen Ferris, two other ReachGlobal Crisis Response staff members, were staying at our house while their truck was getting some much needed repairs.  The quiet house also gave them a chance to have some alone time together after being away from each other for over a week and not really be able to reconnect during a week of meetings.  While at our house, they also restocked the fridge with their favorite foods.  While I would have loved to have everything ready for them and to be a good hostess, reality was they had to treat it as a bring your own stuff kind of vacation home since we had barely been home.

An hour after arriving home, we went with the Ferris’ to meet another couple, Pete and Patty Havens, at a local restaurant for dinner.  Pete and Patty are new staff still working on their ministry support development so that they can come on board.  Once they have the required support funding they will be transitioning to new roles on staff.  They were visiting staff and operations in Covington to explore where they might best fit in.  We were asked to host them for Sunday dinner.  Our schedule meant that we would not be prepared to have them over to our home for dinner.  So we went to plan B.  And ended up at our house afterward.

Monday was a day of trying to get our feet back under us.  Laundry.  Shopping for foods we like to have in the fridge.  Catching up on the crazy amount of emails that we each received over the weekend while we were “off”.  And Babette had another meeting with the Havens to go over what she does as part of ReachGlobal Crisis Response ministry.  Meanwhile, Kevn was beginning to watch this crazy little tropical depression that popped up in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas.  Two of three ReachGlobal Crisis Response sites were potentially in the storms cross hairs.

The rest of the week brought long hours for Babette at the office while she worked to get some projects done that have been hard to work on while traveling.  A small dent was made.  And she had some work that needed to get done this week as well as several other meetings.  Kevin continued to track what became Tropical Storm Imelda and was forecasted to stall over Houston dumping as much rain as Hurricane Harvey did two years before.  And he continued with other work that meant days of phone calls and emails.  In the midst of all this, the Ferris’ left with a rental car for a pre-planned ministry partnership development trip to Florida.  They had to wait for parts to finish the repairs on their truck and decided the best use of the waiting time was to continue with their planned trip.  They will return to us early next week.

By Thursday Tropical Storm Imelda broke the limits on computerized rain gauges with the unprecedented amount of rain it left in Winnie and Beaumont, Texas areas when it took a slight turn to the east from Houston.  By Friday it had looped itself back over Houston leaving more rain there before moving north and weakening.  Kevin’s days became filled with more phone calls about what, if any impacts, the storm had at the response sites in Houston and in Friendswood including impacts to staff homes and homeowners properties.  Thankfully, any flooding was minimal.  But there may be a few homes to re-repair after this storm.  He also had conversation with the pastor of an EFCA church in Beaumont that ReachGlobal Crisis Response had helped for a short time after Hurricane Harvey.  The pastor expected a better of assessment of their church body’s needs by Sunday afternoon.  So those conversations and plans will continue into next week.

And we focused on our way overdue newsletter on Friday.  This is Saturday morning.  I promised myself a day off – starting after this blog.

The rest of September leading up to this week was time on the road.  We started in late August by flying up to Rochester, NY.  Kevin’s brother, Kurt, picked us up and brought us to his home in northern Pennsylvania.  We enjoyed the time with him, his wife and kids while the men finished repairs on Kevin’s new-to-him Ford F-250.  (How the truck got there for the repairs is another story).  Kevin even got to run a wagon and manure spreader which he hadn’t done since graduating high school.  I got to ride a 4-wheeler up to the top of the mountain and appreciate the view from up there.  I wish I could take more computer work breaks like that.  But almost as soon as we arrived, we learned the Hurricane Dorian was forming and might be threatening Florida.  Kevin had several long phone calls with ReachGlobal Crisis Response leadership over what plans might look like for Dorian.

After a long phone call with the Director of Crisis Response, it was decided we should continue with our planned trip until we knew what the impact of Dorian really was.  Others were called in to be ready to go to Florida as soon as needed and to prepare the trucks, trailers, and tools at the Covington warehouse.

We left Kevin’s brother’s place in Kevin’s now repaired and road worthy truck for an annual get-together of my college friends in the Rochester, NY area.  In the 12 years we have lived in Louisiana, I only made it once and that was seven years ago.  Kevin never made it during that time.  Prior to moving to Louisiana, I had never missed one and never missed having Kevin or the kids with me as each became a part of my life.  It was great to be part of that get together again.  But Kevin spent much of it calling churches in Florida, staying in touch with leadership and some others, and staying on top of the weather reports.  The changing forecasted path of Dorian and it’s crawling speed allowed us to keep moving forward with our planned trip.  But it was hard to see the Bahama’s being hit so hard.

From Rochester, we traveled to Pennsylvania on Labor Day.  While staying at my mother’s home, we criss-crossed Pennsylvania meeting with a new staff member who planned to join us at a response site in January, a couple and their children applying to join ReachGlobal Crisis Response, and another young couple praying about joining ReachGlobal Crisis Response.  We had hoped to visit some of our supporters also, but Hurricane Dorian took our focus at it was being forecasted to become a Category 5 storm before hitting the eastern coast of the United States north of Florida.  ReachGlobal Crisis Response already had an active response site in Morehead City, NC after Hurricane Florida, so much of Kevin’s phone calls included plans for the staff and equipment there.  This change in the storm’s projected path resulted in an intentional one-day delay for us returning home in case we would be needed in North Carolina sooner rather than later.  On Thursday morning, we started the trip home.  Dorian was still moving too slow to know where or if we would be needed.  And it’s potential impact was being downgraded although still concerning for Morehead City, NC.  We met up with Adriano at a beautiful lake home in Knoxville, Tennessee.  Adriano was towing a shower trailer that was in Morehead City to get it out of harms way.  A pastor from Two Rivers Church in Knoxville helped connect us with the owners of the lake home.  Sadly, we could only enjoy the home and our hosts’ hospitality for a short evening and one night’s sleep.

We finished the trip back to Covington on Friday with Kevin taking over towing the trailer when Adriano’s truck started having more and more issues while towing.  We weren’t sure what we would be returning home to.  Our son left for college while we were gone.  He did a great job leaving the house in good condition and we had encouraged him to not leave us any left overs in the fridge.  He followed through with that request.  We pulled into the driveway with Adriano following us as well as another staff member, Kat.  Kat was staying at the warehouse until she knew if and where to go as part of the potential Dorian response.  Kevin defrosted some food and pulled together a supper while I worked on getting a room ready for Adriano.

By Saturday, Kevin gave Kat and one of the regular early responders, Gene Johnson, the news they could return home.  Dorian’s impacts on Morehead City were minimal.  Yes, there would be roofs to re-shingle and re-tarp, and there would be siding to replace, but nothing like the damage Florence had done a year earlier.  We praised God for those reports while the church partner in Morehead City, One Harbor Church, looked at ways to help their neighbors in the area known as Down East.  The worst hit area on Ockrakoke Island was a three hour trip from Morehead City including a ferry ride.  At home, we spent Saturday catching up with what we could:  laundry, mail, cutting grass, unpacking from our trip and packing our camper for the next week.

On Sunday morning we went to church at Trinity Church, Covington, with our camper already hitched to the truck and ready to go.  Adriano was driving a borrowed truck since his was now partly torn apart so he could repair it.  When church was over, we got in the trucks and started the trip to Houston for the twice a year meetings for all ReachGlobal Crisis Response staff.  Everyone was to arrive Sunday.  That was probably the fastest trip we made to Houston simply because traffic was light in all of the cities along the interstate where traffic is normally heavy or even crawling.

Monday through Wednesday was three good days of well done Personal and Team Development meetings.  It’s always good to be together in person with most of the staff.  While our camper was used for a few side meetings, the need wasn’t as heavy as in times past and we were able to enjoy some down time in it in the evenings.  On Thursday, I and a few others met with a Microsoft consultant to sharpen our understanding of Teams, a Microsoft app we are using more and more.  Kevin participated in the ReachGlobal Crisis Response Lead Team meeting that afternoon.  Wrapped around that week’s meetings, Kevin had side meetings about responding to the Bahamas after Dorian.  Later he learned that the church with which we were connected was not ready for a group from Crisis Response to come.  We are still waiting on them to be ready for a few people to come meet with them and consult with them.  Conditions in the Bahamas have been preventing that so far.

Adriano and Jen left for our house on Thursday night.  Jen had been in Japan with a team that is preparing for next summer’s EFCA Challenge youth conference where the mission field in Japan would be highlighted.  A typhoon delayed her return to the USA until late Tuesday night.  She was still tired from the trip and Adriano still need to work on the truck.  We left for a campground outside of Lake Charles, LA on Friday.  And that brings us back to where I started this blog with details of this past week!

Now for that day off before we have to focus on what God has in store for us in the coming week.