Family Promise Upate, San Diego Trip Update

Family Promise Update . . .
It has been a whirlwind of a week. Arriving back from vacation and immediately we were into cooking supper for Family Promise with our small group. Small groups are the life-blood of the church. 20+ people(kids incuded) plus seven from Family Promise made for a loud but fun evening. Jill and Theresa have secured housing and will make the move out on their own next week, stay tuned for information on their needs, while they are starting over.
Deborah the other lady in the program got a job yesterday. Deborah began a bible study with Mike Crowley last night, pray for this study to bear fruit. After the Wednesday adult she had tears streaming down her face and had a lot heart questions that need answers. God will give her answers through His people and His word.

San Diego Trip update. . .

We have contacted the Hilltop Group and let them know we are heading their way with 10-20 folks. I believe we have around 12 going on the trip. Right now the list looks like this

Aaron Scott
Justin Dawson
Lanae Kuesninger
Art Turgeon (?)
Paul Sale (?)
Buddy Gray
Sara Mando(?)
Max Allen

and a host of kids from the youth group.

From all indications the work in the area is progressing from clean-up to rebuilding. The nature of work will focus on the unisured and the underinsured property owners. We will still have cleaning work to do but we will mix in light building projects. Fence building, sheds and such as this. I have not had an update on showers yet, but I am sure something is available.
We need committments from anyone who wants to go.

Come and be the hands in this world for God and Jesus.

Questions contact me : ) Buddy 209-380-3851

Family Promise

We are having a great week with our family promise group this week. Last night the three ladies in the program came to our mid-week bible class. Krista, Matthew and I have stayed over and the air mattresses are not too bad, they are not too good either.

Pray for Jill and Theresa who are in the program and on the edge of getting some housing. Jill is an interview away from a Job with a local retailer. Jill and Theresa are applying to a housing program that will allow them to save money for their own place after they complete the program.

So far we have had numerous members have contact with these three families which is the whole point of the program for us. Christians showing Christ's love for those experiencing tough times. It is always good to sit back and watch as we come through with love for these individuals.

Buddy Gray

San Diego County Trip #2/ Family Promise Week

We will be having somewhere between ten and sixteen people make the trip to SD County next week. We are excited to have this much interest in the trip. Presently we are trying to finalize the decision on where it will be best for us to go. The churches of Christ have to work sites up and running at the moment, we will go to the one where we believe that we can do the most good for the kingdom. I will post the decision on Thursday and at that time begin making final plans. Relief work is always fuid, that is it is ever changing. The work this time may be totally different than last time, but still hard work none the less.

I have changed the look of the blog, I hope for the better. Let me know what you think of the changes. I am trying to make the sight informative for the various types of work that we do. I will add more elements to the blog as time allows. If there is any info you would like to see as a part of the blog let me know and I will try nto add it. I am trying to add a sldie show feature and hopefully that will come about in the next week or so. . .

Family Promise is in full swing with the third night coming about tonight. Presently we have seven guests. Three families with a total of 7 people(4 adults and 3 children). Things are running smoothly and the food has been good.

More Fires burning in Southern California

This Link will get you to the latest info on what is burning in Southern California. Pray for the people in this area tonight. Pray for the vigilant firefighters. Remember to call for prayers that God's Great hand can be seen through His People duringthis time of need.

http://www.malibu-ca.gov/download/index.cfm?fuseaction=download&cid=11426

Ramona was spared today with only a small fire that was quickly extingushed. I will keep watch on these fires in the coming days.

I look forward to being home.

Buddy Gray

Getting Ready to Go to San Diego County. . .

Right now I am enjoying time with family. The break has been good so far, I started it out with a whopper of a cold, sniffles, coughing and the works. The bad news is that I spread the germs throughout the world by traveling through several airports. The good news is that the cold is all but gone away.



Trip Info. this trip will be a sprint compared to any other trip we have ever done. We will leave in the afternoon on Thursday, roll in very late and get up around 7:00 a.m. on Friday to go to work. We will work all day Friday and all day Saturday. We will leave after a devotional on Sunday morning. Please confirm you are going on the trip by Tuesday November 27.



Paul Sale and Larry Long have committed to going thus far. Aaron is rounding up a bunch of youth to go with us. We should have a fairly large group. I am excited about the return trip and look forward to going back to the area to help.



We are having a special contribution to help with the costs associated with the trip and to purchase equipment for the response team's future missions. The Lakewood congregation in Colorado has taken up a contribution for us(Community Response Team) and raised over $4500.00 God has blessed and we are humbled by all that he does for us. We are grateful for their willingness to give to this effort. As we assemble more of the team I will post more information. As I find out more information from Hilltop and others in the area I will pass the information along. Please be in prayer as we get ready to take the message of Christ to San Diego County one more time.

Family Promise/ Return Trip News

Family Promise group will show up this next week as the Thanksgiving Holiday is concluding. My heart goes out to these people without a home at this time of the year. I have many fond memories of holidays in the comfort of my home and the homes of my family. For those in the program our building becomes their home and we the members become their family for a brief time. I know it is not easy to give up the comforts of your home, because I know how much I enjoy mine. We need a couple of families still to finsih off the list of night hosts. It is a blessing everytime for Krista, Matthew and I. Matthew enjoys the time with the kids. Let Jesus be demonstrated by your love for others as we host the week of the 25th of November.

We are still planning on leaving December 6th for the areas affected by the fires in San Diego County. If you are planning on going let me know as soon as possible so that I can let Hilltop know how many of us they can expect.

A Time of Respite. . . A Time for Work . . .

Krista and I have snuck away for the last three days. We are on Lake Tahoe, watching the flames in our fireplace and enjoying the scenery. Two days ago they had a light dusting of snow, which makes everything nicely accented with frosted white tips. What a nice way to spend our twentieth anniversary, at one of the most beautiful places in North America.

It is our intention to try to leave for our next Ramona trip on December 6th around 5 pm. Our planned return will be on Sunday. This would give us two days of good work. Again we will be working with Hilltop if they have Room for us. Contact me if you are interested. Comment here or e-mail me or call 209-380-3851.

look at these pictures
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19978632@N05/

Home AT Last . . .

We rolled into Modesto tonight at 10:00 pm. A conclusion to the past couple of weeks helping people rebuild their lives. We arrived about five hours later than anticipated, bad planning on my part for not checking the trailer tires, a blowout on the R.V. etc. God took care of us and got us home safe and sound.

For those that are wondering the foot is healing very well. Most of the soreness is gone and there is no swelling. I have been trying to follow Doctors orders and stay off of it and I am taking my antibiotics.

Two items I wanted to mention about the Ramona Response:

1. At lot # 48 Krista found a nativity scene character fully intact and unblemished. It was a ceramic baby Jesus. The baby Jesus made it through the fire and arose out of the ashes to be used by its owner again. Jesus can endure in lives of everyone no matter what trial they are faced with.

2. At lot# 5 Christie Sipes found a ceramic cross in pristine condition and gave it back to Peter the friend of home owner. His comment, "The Cross survived, just like it has for all these years."

The reason we went to Ramona was to represent Christ. Christ was already there and working, I am glad he allowed all of us who were on the team to work for him for a few days.

Mark your calendars for the second weekend in December. If there is work still there, we will return to Ramona!

Buddy

An Interesting End . . .

What great trip we have had. People who needed help recieved help they desparately needed. I was blessed by people whom I came to bless. My hats off to the members of the team. We worked them hard and they finished the jobs we were assigned.

Jobs completed on Black Canyon DR.

# 5, #8, # 17, 48

Boxing Club, hundreds of pieces of tin straightened, pulled and stacked

One Large truck of supplies unloaded.

Numerous lives touched by the hands and hearts of our team.

At the beginning of the day we (Glen and I) talked it over and decided it would be in the best interest of the team, to finish the projects we had started and go home on Friday. We quickly finished the jobs on Black Canyon and moved to the Boys and Girls Boxing Club. (The boxing club was a place in Ramona for kids at risk to learn discipline in sports.) The property was full of nails. After several near misses, I finally got my puncture wound. I stepped on the nail, Rick pulled it and we walked to the truck for first aid. Rick decided that I needed more than first aid so we went to the church building and set up a medical office. Then he and Dr. Glen fixed me up. I screamed like a little girl when Rick cleaned out the wound. All seems to be going well today.

I will make more comments later

Buddy

Change of plans

In the middle of last night around 3:30 a.m., I woke up and couldn't fall back asleep. The nagging thought I had was this...we've subjected our crew to 4 full days of physical labor with a fifth to come and sixth if we let it and we were pretty banged up. I talked to Buddy this morning about my uneasiness and we decided to start "winding things down." Y'know, finish out the 2 jobs we had and do our best to help out Fabian, a man who was running a Boxing Club for at risk boys and girls and lost his Boxing Club to the wildfires. I figured our bodies couldn't take much more and this would be a good way to finish off a week doing disaster relief work.

As is the case with most disaster relief work, things don't always (or usually) go the way you hoped or planned. Being flexible and making decisions on the fly are part of the deal. The Boxing Club is a job that required taking sheet metal (the walls) and then folding them up and dragging them to the front of the property. The building was big so there were lots of nails, screws, and metal.

Well, as I drove up to the site after lunch, Rick was driving Buddy's truck with Buddy in the passenger side. Strange, something wasn't right. Turns out Buddy stepped on a rusty screw that "went down to the bone." Bad. Very bad. I followed Rick back to the church building to work on Buddy. We have the capacity & supplies to handle most minor medical emergencies, and today was no exception.

Rick irrigated the puncture wound and we watched Buddy squirm and say publicly "I'm scared like a little girl." Graciously, we anesthetized him. After the anesthesia took effect (1 year old expired Lidocaine....again) Rick probed the wound to see if he could feel any metal fragments. No luck. We irrigated the wound even more with saline and betadine and wrapped it up.

I sent Krista off to the pharmacy to get some pain pills, antibiotic pills, and an antibiotic injection which she kindly administered in his backside. Needless to say, Sheila was on hand (naturally) to document the drama.

Given that our commander in chief was now on doctor's orders to stay off his feet while we watched for worsening symptoms and our injuries continuing to mount, I called our crew and told them to stop working because we were done. When the crew arrived, everyone checked their shoe/boot soles and Brian found 6 rusty nails/screws embedded in his boot.

Change of plans. We decided to come home tomorrow instead of Saturday as our bodies are done and Rick and I are not interested in seeing what injuries another work day would bring.

Pray for safe travels. Looking forward to being home.

2239 Black Canyon RD., Day 5

A view of space #48
Prayer for the job
The master bedroom
Lowering the roof.
Krista, Matthew, Rick, Edwina and Max at the CIA food tent

We started today with a great breakfast made by Sheila Smith. Biscuits and gravy were a great way to start the day.

Next we headed to our worksite on Black Canyon RD. We did the same type of work, shoveling debris, emptying wheelbarrows on to the pile and cutting I-Beams. The work takes its toll after a few days. We are in an isolated spot surrounded by homes where life continues as it was before the firestorm. On one side of the street, the lawn company is doing its mow, blow and go, while we are doing relief work for their across the street neighbor. People are jogging in the neighborhood and walking their dogs around the circle of burned out homes.

The attitudes of some of these people is phenomenal. Irene Neal requested our help because she thought another group had forgotten her. While I was talking to her she told me she could not wait for what God had in store for her next. She said she had faced many trials in her long life and everytime God had prospered her after the trial was over. Strong words from someone whose house of 38 years is all gone. Later in the day I passed by and saw her grinning and asked what had happened. She showed me her 150 piece set of china that had survived the firestorm. She gave God the glory.

Another family has agreed to let us clean their property. These folks were still in shock about the loss, but ready to move forward. The husband reached under his car and pulled a large piece of aluminum(melted). It was the aluminum block from the motor of his car. He thought it looked cool and plans to hang it on his new house wall. He asked me if I knew anyone who had a motor block on their wall.

Tomorrow we have some more homes to work, pray that we can bring God's light to this community.

Mid week blues

I dropped Yvonne off at the San Diego Int'l Airport this morning around 9:15 a.m. She was returning to Modesto to be with our girls. (Maya and Ani were ready for Mommy to come home...they were getting tired of not sleeping in their own beds. Mid week blues.)

Got to the work site around 11 a.m. and found the cutting crew getting finished up at lot 17 with the help of a bulldozer and dump truck. The rest of the crew was at Lot 5, the home of Victoria, a Hispanic lady who had lost everything and who had no homeowner's insurance. I saw her yesterday as we were leaving the mobile home park and I jumped out of my truck to talk to her. Peter, a young man who was with her was going to help her remove the debris from her burned down home (by himself!). I explained to them what we do and how much we charge. We would clear the debris and do it for the nominal charge of nothing. Free, nada, nunca. She said "Really?" because free sounded suspicious to her. Once I finally convinced her that we would do the work at no charge, she looked at Peter and asked him "What do you think?" Peter thought about it for about 0.1 seconds and said with a big Cheshire cat grin, "Yeah, I think that's a good offer." Smart young man.

Lot 5 is about 83.4% complete, give or take, after just one half day of working on it with our crew, bolstered by the addition of Rick Kelley and Krista Gray. One was additional muscle & one was additional brains...I'll let you figure out who was which. Rick and I took apart the incredibly large aviary cage and the metal shed that was blown off its foundation and thrown over the chain link fence into the small ravine behind the lot, Oleta sifted ash for valuables, Max and the guys (Paul & Art) worked the metal cutting chop saw, and the rest of the crew shoveled, lifted, and wheelbarrowed debris, metal and otherwise, close to the front of the property to be picked up. During one of the breaks, I found a bike and rode it around the block.

Toward the end of the day, the injuries started to mount. Tina scraped her leg and reinjured her back, making it difficult for her to move. Max's arms were getting torn up by touching sharp metal. (I asked Max to stop working around 3 p.m. to rest his body. 10 minutes after sitting down, he was back shoveling ashes and debris. Go figure. The oldest guy here happens to be one of the toughest.) Krista's back stiffened up and required prescription medicine to help unstiffen. Art often asked, "So how much Ibuprofen can I take?" We were going through Ibuprofen like candy. The aches and pains were definitely taking its toll on our crew. Must be our collective advancing age.

The last hour or so of the work day dragged on and on. The dust from the ashes was more than usual. Everyone's patience was a little shorter than usual. We were getting kind of punchy with each other. Low energy coupled with extreme fatigue and body aches makes for a testy crew. Just in time, 4:20 p.m came around and it was quitting time. Loaded up the trucks and headed for the showers. Nothing helps the mid week blues like a hot shower.

Everyone's been sleeping like bricks. Well deserved sleep, I'd say.

What

More Pictures. . . .

Maui shower

Dr. Glen and Yvonne
Mad Max and his cutting crew
Tina and Yvonne hauling steel

Black Canyon Road, Ramona, CA Day 4. . .

Max cutting some I beam













Max, Tina and Edwina working













The Tide Trailer - free washing of clothes













Looking down Black Canyon ST.













Saving a carport roof to move to camp.
We had an awesome work day today. We went back to Oak Tree Ranch, where 41 homes in one area burned down. Everyhone of the homes in this section burned completely. Jewelery in boxes was reduced to molten metal. Dreams of the future there have ended and new dreams have to be made.
We finished our first job today. Mary Ann's house is now complete. Max, Arts, Paul and I joined together and cut the I- beam structure apart. We used a 14 inch gas powered grinder. It was indeed a manly job. Glen could not operate the heavy duty machine because he had on his girly looking capri pants. Max's pant caught on fire at one point, no real flame, just alot of smoke. Max had some hot pants on, Jeanette knows what I mean.

Shelley's lot is almost complete. We have about six more cuts on the I-beam and then we will be finished. We sifted more of her property today and found several former pieces of gold. Shelley is ready to move forward. May God bless her.

Sue's house is next on our list. I walked the property with her, she is still in shock as she looks around at what she thought would be her retirement home. Her husband and her have made some of the most beautiful landscape features I have ever seen on one small lot. There were water falls, plants park benches and many other items that made the place their dream home. Now they are looking at moving to a senior mobile home park in Ramona, in town, not in the country. Sue could not believe that we would do the work for free. She kept commenting, how much is this going to cost? She also would ask what the catch was. I told we were here because Jesus Christ had sacrifed life and blood for each of us, we felt it was the least we could do to clear a lot full of fire debris for his glory. She started crying and sobbing. She composed herself and said she knew Jesus and God, and knew that better days were ahead and someday she would be able to see the good God had brought to Ramona through all of this.

We actually got a referral today from a group of Chaplains with Billy Grahmn's Crisis Group. They had visted us earlier and came back with a job that Samaritan's Purse could not do. We will help a boy's and girl's club position themslves to rebuild.

We shower at night at the Maui shower. These showers come out of Minnesota. This is a big rig, full of stainless steel showers. Normally the cost is $5 for five minutes, we are using them for free. What a blessing to have a good shower at the end of the day.

Yvonne leaves us tonight for the airport, we will miss her useful therapy of massage, and her hard work behind shovels and wheelbarrows. We all prayed together, she cried and I had a moment of eye watering allergies. We have jobs to do for God tomorrow. Pray for Him to use us and for us to be willing to do it his way.

Buddy Gray

RAMONA RESPONSE DAY 3. . .

Today was a great day of work. We finally got into the field doing the work we came to do. The first house we worked on was Mary Ann's house. Mary is single and has lived in her house for several years. This was the fifth time her and her family have been evacuated for a fire, this time the fire came with vengence and destroyed all 41 homes in this small subdivision. All the homes were manufactured homes, all were burned up completely. In fact nothing was left but the I- beam frame. Mary Ann gave her 60 day notice to the landlord at the park today she never wants to live there again. Like many other disasters I have worked, she has the defeated look in her eyes, her eyes say that it is time to move on and be free from the pain of the present. The only thing we were able to salvage was the melted gold from her jewelery box. We sifted through the ashes on the ground underneath where here bedroom used to be to find the remnants of many good memories.
Shelley's house was around the corner from Mary Ann's house. Shelley works at a local bank in town, she will not return to live in the subdivision again. She has lived throught the evacuations and now the fire has consumed the last eleven years of her life's possesions. Her attitude is positive, she will someday move to Oregon and be near family, right now she has to stay and negoiate with insurance companies for her nestegg that is due her. Shelley walked me around her property and described the beauty of her property, at one time she was caught up in talking about how she had her morning coffee on her back porch that opened out her bedroom. As she described this vividly she was holding her hands as if she was sipping the coffee one last time. Next she walked down the ravine and described the way the fireflighters had explained how the fire consumed the neighborhood. There are two 3ft diameter culverts for the ravine waters to cross the road when it rains. The people in the park were called by reverse 911 and told to leave within five minutes. Shelly's daughter was leaving as the fire was arriving. The fire raced down the ravine driven by seventy plus mile an hour winds. The flames came down the hill in less than five minutes and consumed all the houses in less than fifteen minutes. The charred area by the cluverts shows that the fire was coming through the tubes like fire through a rocket engine. The fire shot out over 150 feet. I prayed with Mary Ann and she asked us to sift her bedroom where her grandmothers jewlery was kept. We found the charred box of jewelry with everything in it melted. Sheila Smith and I took the box to her at the bank. She thanked us for our effort and said she would always keep the box to remind her of these days after the fire. We found one other keepsake for her. 18 years ago her daughter made a vase for her in third grade. I dug it out of the ashes for her, she already had it on her desk at the bank.
We prayed with and for both families today for God to heal the hurts that only he can heal. Later tonight I will post pictures of both sites.

Pray for God to use us . . .

Buddy Gray

All in a day's work

Excellent day today. The team was ready to roll at 8 a.m. after getting our work orders from Corky, the Hilltop camp "El Jefe." We were assigned to an area where 40 plus mobile homes bordering a ravine were completely burned to the ground. The fire came down from the ridge above, and when mixed with the 90 mph Santa Ana winds and the drainage pipes that were at one end of the ravine, it made for a turbo like effect, shooting a torrent of fire through the 3 foot diameter pipes a full 150 feet. With a firestorm like that, it makes total sense that 41 homes were lit up and burning to the ground inside of 15 minutes. The homeowners were given the 911 call to leave and within 4 minutes the fire was down the ridge and starting on the first homes. Twisted metal, melted glass, and remnants of people's lives lay on the ground like scattered leaves. It was quite a sight.

Our assignment was to clear the burned debris close to the street so that it could then be hauled off. After seeing all the burned nails, screws, and metal I'm glad I insisted that everyone get their tetanus boosters! The homeowner, Mary Ann, wanted us to save as many of the paver stones as possible...she was going to rebuild her life somewhere, just not in Ramona. A few months prior to the fire she had invited one of her loved ones to come move in with her...she agreed, moved all of her belongings into Mary Ann's house while she awaited her move and then the fire struck. Mary Ann said to me in tears, "I asked her to come live with me to have a better life and now look. What kind of life is this? I'm just so hopeless."

Hopelessness? That was the opening I was looking for. As she went around to each of us to thank us for all of our help, I asked if we could pray for her. She agreed and we prayed for her. Prayer for not only a place to live, but for hope, support, and something better. The something better we know comes from a saving relationship with Jesus. When the final amen was said, she said "The best thing in all of this is finding out that there are people out there who care. Thank you." She walked off slowly, clutching the bust of a china doll covered in soot, softly crying.

After lunch, we went back to the mobile home park to clear off another homesite. While there, one of the crew members stepped over the metal frame of the home and cut the inside of her knee. As a physician, I'm tasked with providing medical care to our team of volunteers. As it turns out, the one who cut her knee was Yvonne, my wife. I washed her bleeding leg off with some cold water, put some neosporin on, bandaged it, and told her to take it easy until we got back to camp. What I didn't tell her was she needed stitches. (She doesn't really like needles so I didn't want to unnecessarily freak her out....what a nice husband, huh?)

Back at camp, I took off her bandage and told her of my plan. Word got around that I was going to suture Yvonne's leg so Tina, Edwina, Christie, Chrissy, and Sheila all eagerly asked Yvonne's permission "to watch." I've been in medicine for nearly 2 decades and have taught medical students, nursing students, resident physicians, and other medical professionals and I have never had a bigger audience for a procedure than I had today. All for a whopping 2 stitches! Oh, I failed to mention that Gary, one of the other Hilltop volunteers, kept me company talking my ear off as well. (Buddy asked if he could learn how to suture...after some thought of about 0.2 milliseconds, I said no, possibly because this was my wife. More likely, I didn't want to incur the beating that Yvonne would inflict on me had I said yes. He pouted, went in to the dining hall, and refused to participate in the growing debacle...I mean minor surgery.)

So back to the procedure. The lighting in the building was bad, so I did what any sensible physician in the field would do...I lay my patient down on the tailgate of my Toyota Tundra and operated on her in the parking lot. Given that our medical supplies are mostly donated, it shouldn't surprise me that my glove size is 7, but the gloves I had were a 9. Who ever said fit was important? I anesthetized her wound with some 1 year old Lidocaine (she'll never know), sutured her with 4-0 Vicryl, slapped a bandage on it and called it good. After taking a bow, I waved to my impressed gallery of 10 viewing members, including my patient Yvonne and yours truly, and rode off into the sunset.

All in a day's work.

More Pictures

Ramona Pictures

Ramona Response Day 1

After arriving yesterday we went out to eat at Mama Rosa's Restaurant, which I had pegged for a fairly nice place for Mexican food. To my surprize it was Italian. While at Mama Rosa's we met a couple who were still recovering from the previous fire here a couple of years ago. I told them what our group was doing and they nodded and thanked us for caring and being here in Ramona. They left soon after that and within a few minutes we were told by the waitress that the couple was paying for our meal and that we could add anything else we wanted. What a blessing for us. A couple we had never met decided to pay for 12 meals. It was cool and we all were greatly blessed by the event.
Today we made the obligatory tour of destruction as we traveled to Escandido, CA. The fire swept through the valley and burned most of everything in its path.
When arrived in Escandido we helped offload a 53' trailer from the Disaster Relief Effort of Nashville. I was extremely happy to see the back wall of that trailer when we finally finished.
Tonight we ate at the Mountainview Community Church, they are hosting a group called Christ in action(CIA). CIA is from VA and is currently providing our morning and night meals. CIA also has shower trailers that are out of this world. Tide detergent is providing a trailer of washers and dryers.
Tomorrow we go to work at our first site. We are eager to go work and be the hands God wants us to be.
Glen (Dr. Glen) was wearing his capri pants that he wore during the Katrina relief effort. The only thing missing was his robin's egg blue crocs that he wore as we arrived in Slidell. Funny how he seems to fit in so well in CA.

Ramona Response

We arrived last night after an eleven hour journey on the road. We arrived safely and all is well. Today we will help unload a truck load of items from Disaster Relief out of Nashville and set up camp at the Ramona Church of Christ. We have homeowners ready for us to work at their places and we are ready to roll. We will blog more later today.

we seek your prayers,

Buddy