tablets of human hearts

Day 25

Whew. The days are flying by, now that I’m back to work. After getting up at 630 am, working until lunch, then coming home and working on the house until dark, I’m exhausted by bedtime and don’t have the energy to write.

The last couple of days we’ve been sweating and praying as we watched Rita work her way west. We don’t wish the storm on anyone, but I can’t imagine what would happen if she would hit here. Noone would be able to secure for the storm, because we have trees and debris all over our yards and so many houses (those that survived) have been weakened structurally. I’m praying that the Lord would just dissipate Rita before she hits anywhere, or that she would hit the least populated area. Can you imagine Houston being hit like we were? What would that do to our country? I wonder, through all of this, what does that Lord want us to learn? Have we, as a nation, not realized that some things are just outside of our control, have we not recognized His sovereignty and our need for Him? It took famine, occupation, and captivity, to name a few, for Israel to realize their sin and turn back to the Lord. What will it take for our nation?

It’s nice to have the kids back. Well, two of the three, since Heather is at college.

Daniel has been helping out at the house, along with a couple of his friends. For the most part, they do a great job. Daniel and Matthew bailed swamp water out of plastic bins I had in the garage. The smell was quite awful. Unfortunately, one of the bins contained some Christmas decorations. I was able to salvage a few things, however. Daniel has installed insulation in the entire downstairs and Matthew has helped his dad (Rocky) hang dry wall. Jon is in the process of mudding and taping. We have our bedroom and Jonny’s room almost ready for painting. There are so many details to worry about that makes the job bigger. All of the floorboards had to be ripped out and will have to be replaced. The metal stripping on the corners of walls had to be snipped, removed and replaced. Door frames had to be removed, and if I can clean them up and repaint them, they will then be replaced. We’ll have to buy all new interior doors since they all cracked and warped. Jon and I visited Home Depot and purchased a new fridge and stove. They should be delivered on October 7^th. We still have to visit the cabinet store and the floor store.

We received some stuffed toys in the mail today for the kids. A church in my hometown blessed them and sent them to us, along with some books for Jonny. My girl friend, Laura, also sent some books for Jonny. He’s been quite excited to receive the gifts in the mail. Thank you so much. Please continue to pray for the children dealing with the loss of their homes, their belongings, and their stability. Pray that the Lord would give them an extra measure of grace and would help them deal with the questions that even adults don’t have answers to.

God bless you as you pray for those in the path of Rita.
(Did you notice she has the same letters as those found in Katrina?)

Grace & Peace

Day 22

I received several emails today about the ungrateful refugees and the lack of willingness of refugees to help themselves. I’ve also read numerous articles looking for someone to blame, whether it’s local government, federal government, or insurance companies – everyone wants someone to blame.

I’ve been writing my emails to help those I love and care about connect with the tragedy down here on the coast. I’m also aware that my emails have been sent all over the place, which I definitely don’t mind, because I think it helps others to connect as well. And the outpouring of support from people who don’t even know us has been amazing.

Because my emails seem to travel so far, what I challenge all of you to do for me is to collect stories of hope.

There will always be those who complain, are ungrateful, and who want to blame someone else. But there are many, scattered across small town America, who are attempting to rebuild their lives in the wake of Katrina. If you know of stories that tell of hope, thankfulness and God’s goodness, grace and mercy displayed in the lives of people as a result of the hurricane, I ask that you would share them with me.

The depravity of the human heart demonstrated on the news through looters, rapists, shooters, complainers, and grumblers should be expected. It’s the condition of the human heart. After all, Jesus died for our sins, not because we deserved it, but because we desperately needed it.

What should be celebrated, however, are hearts that are grateful, those who are appreciative, and those who give praise to God because of the love of His people.

Check around your town. See if you can find any stories such as these to share. And I will do the same.

I reported to work today. I didn’t accomplish much besides talking to everyone and listening to how they fared. One of the civilians, who survived Camille, lost his home in Pass Christian. He now owns a slab. A military member lost everything when floodwaters surged through the manufactured home he was renting. Many had worse flooding than we did. Of the thirty some people at our command, thirteen have unlivable homes to one degree or another.  Please pray for everyone as they find places to live, deal with the day to day struggles, fight the long lines, and wait for insurance claims and assistance.

I spent the afternoon cleaning out the garage, along with the help of Matthew and Daniel. There was still swamp water in two storage bins and two storage drawers. Matthew and Daniel were pretty grossed out bailing the smelly water so we could dump it out. Unfortunately, one of the bins contained Christmas items (I think I’ll be able to save some of the table clothes and place mats) and the two drawers contained Thanksgiving items (all a total loss).

On the up side, with the assistance of Rocky, we hung our first dry wall in Jonny’s room. Yea! Progress; we’re starting to repair, rather than remove. And Praise God, our washer and dryer seem to be working (please pray that they continue to do so). We also have another praise: our car insurance informed us that we’ll be receiving more than we expected for Jon’s Sante Fe. What a blessing.

It’s time to get the boys settled down for bed. We’ll have to say thank you prayers.

God bless for all your prayers.

Grace & Peace

Day 21

Yesterday was a rough day. My emotions seemed to be raw and overwhelming, bubbling to the surface throughout the day.

Jon and I were up early and headed over to the house to pick up paint chips. I had plans of trying to pick up some paint at Home Depot. We stopped by Doug and Betty’s house on the way out. They live closer to the hardest hit area of Diamondhead and had water up to their ceilings. They are currently living in an RV parked in their driveway and have their salvageable things stacked up under an awning and the water damaged items stacked up, like everyone else, along side the street. We visited for a while and Betty shared with me some of their stories. She lost so many things but was delighted to find that, although her china cabinet was on the floor, all of her china was intact. She had her guest room decorated with hundreds of Beanie Babies, all of which were soaked in the flood waters. When Jon was walking through their house, he even found two of them up on the drooping ceiling fans.

From there we drove to Biloxi to drop off Daniel’s trumpet at the music store to be fixed. We found it in the trunk of Heather’s car, floating in flood waters. Thankfully, trumpets are pretty durable and can be cleaned and repaired. We’ll have to buy him a new case, though; the other is in the trash heap.

We stopped at Sam’s but it was a mad house so we went on to Home Depot, which was also a mad house. We tried looking at appliances, to replace the ones ruined by water, but all of their appliances were boxed up. I’m sure everyone else along the coast that still has a house standing is trying to purchase replacements for their homes. We looked at floor tile and found that Home Depot charges quite a bit for laying the tile. I told Jon, we can save a lot of money by laying it ourselves. I wanted to also look at paint, but Jon wasn’t that interested. He’s still focused on all the work we have yet to do in get insulation and walls back up.

We went over to the house to work for the afternoon. I told Jon and Bob they should try to get the DirectTV working. After all, we’re paying for that along with NFL Sunday ticket and they haven’t been able to watch it all month. So, Jon climbed up on the roof to adjust the dish, while I watched our 32 inch TV to let him know when the signal starting coming in. I couldn’t have been watching the TV more than five seconds when, POW! The TV blew. Needless to say, I didn’t handle the situation very well. It just didn’t seem fair.

Jon and I took an evening walk to talk. We discovered that we each have different ideas of how to hope for the near future. Neither is wrong, they’re just different. We just have to allow each other the liberty of having different hopes. We also need to keep praying together.

Today, Jon and Bob drove to Beaumont Texas to pick up the kids. They should be arriving here soon. I’m not sure whether or not the kids will want to go over and look at the house this evening. The Tyo house will be full tonight.

Tomorrow I return to work.

Please continue to pray for all of us. Our spirits grow weary and need refreshing.

God bless

Grace & Peace

Day 19

I think we arrived at a turning point today. Jon and Bob ripped out the last of the sheetrock. They’ve finished demolishing our home and we’ll be able to begin restoration. I cleaned Daniel’s room today; it was quite a mess. I’m still hoping we’ll find his snake, which escaped when Daniel left the cage unlatched before we evacuated. Jon and Bob will be meeting Jon’s parents in Beaumont Texas to pick up the kids on Sunday. We’ll continue to stay with Bob and Staci until our house is livable, which Jon hopes to have by the end of the month. Of course, livable means electricity with appliances.

Grace & Peace

Day 18

This morning I drove over to Hancock School District office to verify the start of school. All the Hancock schools north of I10 will be starting September 30^th. The office did recommend that we drive the kids the first day, as the schools will still be figuring out the busing situation. I also stopped by Jonny’s after school daycare. Unfortunately, they will not reopen and their space is already leased to someone else. So we’ll have to look for after school care for him again.

As I drove through the Kiln (the town to the northwest of Diamondhead) I saw more hurricane damage. A mobile home that once sat in an open field looked like it had been rolled across the field and smashed to pieces in the woods across the road. A storage place had been flooded and people were starting to pull out their ruined items and piling them next to the road. Further down, a housing area on the bayou had flooded. The houses were built on ten foot pilings and still had five or more feet of flooding in the homes. Along side the road, I saw a boat and a car in the woods, where they had been washed up. There is still so much to clean up.

Our house is making progress. Jonny’s room and our room are ready for floating sheetrock. Saturday, I plan on going to Home Dept to start getting paint for repainting. I’ll also be dropping of Daniel’s trumpet to be cleaned and fixed. We found it in the flooded trunk of Heather’s car. A Navy working crew came to our house this afternoon and made some progress in getting a lot of the trees cut up. We had three trees in our yard blow over and one leaning precariously toward the house. Two other trees in the empty lot behind us decided to blow over into our yard as well. Privacy fences do not fare to well when huge trees fall on them.

Rocky decided to give us a heart attack. He told us he could take down the leaning tree and he did. He climbed up as high as he could (which was pretty darn high) and started cutting branches and topping the tree. He kept at it (while we watched and prayed really hard) until he had it short enough to cut down. I don’t know how he handled the chainsaw and ropes and still hold on to the tree himself. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera to get any pictures.

When I was driving back and forth in Diamondhead today, it occurred to me that I’m “getting used to” the destruction and mess. When the kids return, I’ll get a chance to see it afresh, through their eyes, as they see the devastation for the first time. It made me think again of the analogy of sin. Sometimes, we’re so “used to” our sin, we fail to see the horrible and sad mess it really is. Initially, we may be shocked by it and its affect on our lives, just like I was initially shocked by the hurricane destruction when we first returned to the coast. However, if we’re not careful, we can become numb to the sin and the destruction it causes in our lives. We’ve seen it so much it almost becomes normal. Just as I have seen the piles of debris and damaged homes so often in the past week, it seems like it’s always been that way. Not until someone new reopens our eyes to the heartbreak each pile and each damaged home represents, do I remember that Diamondhead is not supposed to look this way. In the same way, we daily need a fresh look at our sin through God’s word, so that we might see our sin for what it really is, not what we’ve learned to believe is acceptable. Once we see the sin as the destructive mess that it is, we can then begin allowing the Lord to clean it out of our lives, and restore us to the beauty He intended.

May God touch your hearts in a mighty way today.

Grace & Peace