The Church...United

Last weekend as our state was hit by several tornadoes, I stood in amazement as I watched the body of Christ come together and unite as one to take care of those hurting, emotionally and physically.

Countless churches organized teams to help with Disaster relief and serve food, water and necessities. Denomination, color, age, class...none of that mattered. We serve the same God, and came together to share the love of Christ with those that already know Him and better yet, with those who may not know Him at all but were able to see Him through something we might have said or done.

I spent last week helping serve food at my church, Desperation Church in Cullman, to the community.

We started out with a couple of packs of hamburgers and Hot dogs...

and before long trucks upon trucks from Tn, Ms, Birmingham and other surrounding areas began to show up.

We stood in Amazement as we watched God multiply what little resources we began with.

we had more than we knew what to do with at times

What a great problem to have!

Assembly line!

Bring the meat, We will grill it!

I wish I could tell every little God story that took place last week , and that is still taking place.

I could seriously just sit and listen to them all day. I just love it.

I do want to tell one story that I was personally a part of...

Friday afternoon was probably our busiest day. There were people everywhere and the food was disappearing as fast as we could get it made.

I was wrapping hamburgers and Hot dogs in Aluminum foil. We ran out of the little bags of chips.

Linda needed someone to run get some more. Lauren Belcher and I volunteered to go. Linda gave us some money. $160 I believe and said "Get as many as you can"

We set out in a town withthout power to find some chips.

Food World and Wal Mart had just opened up. We opted for Food World first, figuring Wal Mart would be nothing but chaos.

Food World only had 6 variety packs of the individual bags of chips. We bought those for around $40, dropped them off at the church and geared up to take on Wal Mart.

With the $120 we had left we needed chips, aluminum foil, and brown paper sacks. I figures out to the cent (tax and all) that we could get 14 bags of chips with $100. We planned to use the remaining 20 for Aluminum foil and paper lunch bags, but knowing that would not be enough I planned to ude my debit card for the remainder.

We got 2 huge $7 rolls of aluminum foil and around 8 or so 100 pack paper sacks.

The total should have been well over $120.

We go up to the counter, and checked out. The lady said my total was $117.00 and some change. Lauren and I looked at each other, I looked back at the cashier and said "are you sure?"

She said "yes". I just grinned and said "ok"

Lauren and I looked at the receipt and it just didn't make sense.

We got back to the church. I gave Linda the change and said "I shouldn't have any money to give back to you but here it is." She said, "that's what this weekend is all about"

Fishes and Loaves!!!!

we watched God provide over and over again.

It was stinkin' incredible

I Love it!

We were able to serve a little over 5,000 people in the Cullman Community and send out several teams of guys to clean up yards and debris.

How awesome is that?!?

God will definitely be glorified in all things:0)

I am so thankful that I got the opportunity to help out, invest in these peoples lives, and be a part of God's work.

We must remember though, that this is what we as Christians are called to be DAILY, not just in times of disaster. We must also continue to reach out to the storm victims. We can't just serve a few days and let that be it. These people have lost their homes and family members. It isn't over in a weekend. Their lives are affected forever. We must continue to first, lift them up in prayer and then also continue to reach out in whatever way possible.

"My grace is sufficient for you, My power is made perfect in weakness"

2 Corinthians 12:9