This week, our class is in Texas to do our part in the disaster relief from Hurricane Harvey. Originally, our class was planning to drive vans from Hume Lake, California to Houston, Texas. But, the leaders and staff from Joshua thought it best to see if God would rather us fly instead. Reason being, so that we could be more intentional and efficient with the allotted time that we had set aside to serve the victims of the the natural disaster. The leaders and staff fundraised for the trip and put up a video on Facebook asking for spiritual and financial help, God responded. Some donors saw the video and felt led to write a check for the full $20,000 that we had needed to fly. If the donors who blessed our class and the time we are going to have in Texas are reading this, on behave of our entire class, thank you.
Our adventure to Texas began Friday, November 10th. We left the Joshua Lodge after dinner that night and drove down to Bakersfield. There, we were gracefully hosted by a local church so that we could lay our heads to rest for an early start the next morning. 5 a.m. with alarms chiming we all woke up excited for what lay ahead. From Bakersfield, we road tripped south to LAX where all 55 of us checked our bags in and boarded our flight to Texas! We had a short 35 minute layover in El Paso where we then departed to San Antonio, Texas. After about a couple of hours and a few unkept promises from the car rental company, we all piled in cars driven by staff and headed to the rural area surrounding Houston! It was a great and joy filled 19 hours of travel to the newly renovated facility that is hosting us called Straight Way. Straight Way is a residential therapeutic, non-sectarian, Christian-based and alcohol rehabilitation program, founded in 1975 by Director David Kirschke. If you would like to know more about the facility or program, please click the link below.
Sunday was a great day for us to lay our rest and prepare our bodies for the week ahead. We experienced true Southern Hospitality and were served breakfast by the staff and students of Straight Way. Following breakfast we went to a mega church called Sugar Creek Baptist which was the home church of Hume’s current Chief Development Officer, Bob Mull who is with us in Texas. After church, The Joshua Staff and Leaders surprised our class and took us to Nasa’s Houston space museum, the time there was incredible! We saw the actual, not a replica, Colombia Command Module from the Apollo 11 from the moon landing! We may or may not have been majorly nerding out…
Monday, today, our class turned in our homework in the morning and set off to help serve an elderly couple who owned a huge plot of land and the five buildings they owned. Each of the buildings were filled to the brim with their personal family history, artifacts and antiques. Immediately it felt like we were in the the show American Pickers. Unfortunately, we were not there to buy things. We were there to serve and love them in the name of Jesus, which is better by far. Our class split up into multiple groups and took on the responsibility of bringing the elderly couple hope. Some groups tore out moldy drywall, some groups cleared out the ruined antique furniture and some just did mundane tasks that needed to be done. At the end of the day, we were able to pray for the couple and the beautiful lives that they led. We felt like we had made a difference and that we had planted and watered seeds of hope in their lives. Today, God’s love won.
Today’s blog was written by:
Bethany Bramble, Jubilant Jeremiah & Nathan Conte
CHECK OUT THE VIDEO HERE
Straight Way’s website:
