Sunday Homily for March 11, 2018, 4th Lent
Bona Responds at work.
Readings:
2 Chronicles 36, 14-16, 19-23, Cyrus, king of Persia, builds a temple in Jerusalem.
Psalm 137, Let my tongue be silenced if I ever forget you.
Ephesians 2, 4-10, God raised us up.
John 3, 14-21, Jesus and Nicodemus converse
Some of The Team.
Today's Homily, Shared
On February 23 a group of 10-15 of our community went to Dickinson, TX to help people cleaning up from Hurricane & flood Harvey. Our group met up with about 50 students, faculty, and alumni from St. Bonaventure U., near Buffalo. Professor Jim Mahar regularly leads these groups to crisis areas mostly in our country. He titles the group Bona Responds.
Today the community has invited the members of our group to share with us what touched their hearts during their stay in Dickinson. Our group includes John & Connie Bresson, David Dinsmore, Bill Hammond who coordinates us with Bona Responds, and Mike Moran.
Bona does ceilings.
John started by saying how emotional and humbling it was to work along these college kids who were giving up their Spring Break to clean up trash, to tear down dry wall, to wade through filthy flood water left in houses, to crawl back out of holes when the rotten flooring in a house or trailer home collapsed.
Connie described working in the black mold trailer home of an elderly lady who could hardly do anything. They cleared out moldy dry wall, insulation, and even flooring.
Clean up.
There was one house that had 10 family members and relatives during the flood which brought in 4 feet of water inside the house/trailer. A tree fell on the house. Everyone, including a 94 year old grandmother and a dog had to climb to the attic for 10 hours to escape the flood water.
They were finally rescued when they hailed a passing boat, everybody, including the dog. Except one beloved family treasure, a Cockatiel bird. They were broken hearted. They finally were able to return a week later. And what did they find, the pet Cockatiel, his cage half way filled with water, but alive and still loving everyone.
Some of our Community who made the trip to Dickinson.
The family was blessed in that they had friends and family out of state who came to the rescue, cleaning, gutting, repairing, and even repainting. Our group helped with some of the final steps, removing old insulation and installing new.
There was a trailer park, a complete disaster. The first lady our people went to work for was named Theresa, very feeble with MS. Her shower was broken so our people fixed it. Theresa took her first shower in 6 months.Theresa was so grateful to the group that she gave the only gift she had other than love. Theresa handed to each person a hand made artificial flower, gifts more touching than any kind of monetary gift.
Mike shares some of his memories and blessings.
Another elderly lady was living with her 5 dogs in a trailer home that was in like a bowl, a bowl with 3 feet of water. Our people were able to pump out the water, which housed various water creatures like crawdads. In the middle of the process three volunteers crashed through the lady's mobile home floor, uninjured fortunately. Our team gutted the ceiling, walls, and floor. Finally plywood was put back on the lady's floor.
Mike described how he was touched and impressed with Jim Mahar's practice of delegation and inclusion. Some of the students had never held a hammer or done any of this kind of work. They were still valuable. Every morning and every evening all would gather. In the evening the stories came pouring out in response to Jim's question, What touched you today?
What has touched you today?
Dona reporting on the Community's continued generosity in raising over $200 to help furnish the volunteer barrack with a large coffee maker and a 4 slice toaster (something important missing on the last visit).