Our Experience of Ike

Like the rest of the country, we have been horrified by the devastation on the Texas coast. And like most Austinites, we have been secretly, guiltily, nursing a grudge against Ike for not giving us any rain. This kind of devastation is pretty mind-blowing, but there is an odd capriciousness to the destruction. In the picture to the right (borrowed from the New York Times), check out the single standing house. How did that happen? Apparently several hundred people weathered the storm on this island, too, and how did that happen? I mean how did they decide to stay and then how did they manage to survive. It's beyond me on a lot of levels.

In any case, Saturday morning, we were watching the news, and they said that the Red Cross was desperate for volunteers to man the shelters. When my dear wife asked whether we should go, a hundred excuses jumped into my mind, but then I realized what an opportunity it was. At my son's suggestion, we donned matching T-shirst and then saddled up onto bikes and trailers and rode over to the volunteer station, which was just under 2 miles away, to see what we could do. We had visions in our heads of working with the kids to stack water bottles or fold blankets. There, instead, we found a long line of people waiting to volunteer: the staff were completely overwhelmed. I sat through about an hour's worth of lines to clear the initial hurdles of registering and submitting to a background check. Then there was another wait for the orientation session and scheduling. Rather than wait two hours for a slot to open up in those, I decided to bike back home with the family and get the kids some shade, water, and lunch, and put Caroline down for a much needed nap. My plan was to go back later and finish the sign-up process after the line had died down a bit.

Well, later, when I biked back over, the line was even longer, and they were giving out tickets for orientation sessions hours later. At that point, sad to say, impatience and the perception that there were way more volunteers than expected trumped my altruistic streak, and I returned home with a vague promise to come back later if I could. It turns out that we ended up going to the library and the grocery store instead.

I don't honestly know whether this was a success or a failure. We did manage to talk to the kids about volunteering, and as far as they're concerned, they pitched in and helped while Daddy went to sign up. I feel pretty good about going as far as I did and having several good conversations with the family about serving others. But the fact is I didn't follow through.

So here's the alternative, and I'm donating right along side you: The Capital Area Food Bank and the Central Texas Red Cross are both desperate for donations now. Click the links with me and pitch in to help some organizations that make a real difference. In the sign up process, I was impressed with a statement posted about part of the Red Cross's mission which is to enable the service of ordinary citizens in helping each other in times of need. That pretty much fits in with our Christian principle of "each one has."