Tornadoes, and slums
Today I got to see a good sign of humanity worth saving.
Yesterday a tornado went through the worst of the slums in my town. Oaklawn. This place was built in the 40s ish to house WWII aircraft workers for Boeing, and because the aircraft folk moved on into real housing, and the poor moved in, the houses were never torn down and replaced with permanent structures like they planned. It is quite possible that the average income in the area can be figured in four digits, but if not it is definatly under 30k a year.
My sister happens to live there, so today I took the kids and we went to help their aunt clean up, since she lost her major tree in the backyard, and her Stuff was Messed up. When we were done we went out to help others.
We were far from the only folk doing that. People with chainsaws were going door to door cutting up the debris, people were helping each other all over. Not just neighbors or friends, but people who finished their own clean up went to help others.
The local church sent people out walking the streets all day with backpacks full of cold liquids, Soda, water and Gatoraide. They sent people in trucks around with snacks and such. They had a food kitchen set up and had a medic on site with a trailor. All of this? without once preaching to us as they helped. If you Asked they said where they were from, but they were truely there to help not to mission.
They will need more help. I plan to send my professor an e-mail asking for an extension for this weeks homework.