Talk About Perspective

This morning at our job site, two of our little groups continued to work on laying flooring.  We had hoped to finish up both the upstairs and downstairs halls so that we could begin the living room, but both groups ran into frustration after frustration and made almost no progress.  While I won't say that tempers were flaring, there certainly was a loss of energy and enthusiasm, and the collective mood was mighty low.

At about 11:45, the owner, Miss Gwen, came by to thank us for our work and tell us her Katrina story.  Four days sitting on her roof with her husband and son, as well as some neighbors that they had rescued from another house, some of those days the sun so hot that she said that it almost felt like her skin was cooking.  After no one came to rescue them, they swam to where they could walk, and walked to the airport where they were sent to San Antonio, Texas, leaving everyone they knew and the only life that they had ever known, everything about her life changing forever.  Her family eventually settled in Galvaston, where she lost everything again when Hurricane Ike hit that city.

There were five or six or seven more tragedies like that, including contractor fraud, multiple thefts of  construction  equipment, and a leg amputation.  With that background, what she really wanted to talk about was how God put the right people in her life to help her and how grateful she was that we were building God's house for her to live in.

Last night, our program leader suggested that the most important thing we could do this week would be to listen to people's stories.  What a privilege to do just that.