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Saturday, we had no electricity, no water, and yet - it was a positive experience for me and one that I will never forget. As I mentioned earlier, everyone began combining their resources, leadership began to form, and we were comfortable... in good spirits... with food, water, a way to use the restroom. The church had brought a lot of food to us from the Bishops Storehouse. The amazing thing though, was that we didn't even really need it for the time we were in Many. Our church spends a lot of time on Emergency Preparedness and teaching people to be self-reliant. We are encouraged to prepare by getting a year supply of food, 72 hour kits, etc. I saw the powerful benefit of this counsel this past weekend. We had anti-bacterial soap to keep everyone clean. We had a generator to keep our refrigerated food good. We had filled up the baptismal font with water and we used that to flush toilets. We were washing dishes with hot water.
My father-in-law owns the Bar-B-Q Restaurant and he had brought a lot of food that would have otherwise gone bad. On Saturday night, we ate chipped beef and link sandwiches, potato salad, and jambalaya. Again I was just so impressed that we were able to take care of 100 people - a blind man, two in wheelchairs, a girl with down-syndrome, another who has seizures often (I can't remember her disease), at least four women over 70, and several children.
My kids had such a great time. Our son was crying when we left saying, "I want to live at that church." The other thing that made our time in Many such a good experience was the treatment we received from the LDS members that lived in Many. One family lived directly across the street from the church. Until electricity went out, they offered their home for showers and a TV for us to get news (there was no cable at the church). They opened their home to anything we needed. There was also a family that came to visit us, not of our faith, that offered their pool for water to flush toilets. Although we didn't end up using it, it was so neat to see the community and their willingness to do whatever they could.
OK, so Saturday we wanted any information we could find. We learned that North Vidor and Mauriceville were devastated. Another friend had gone through and said it looked like a bomb had gone off. Our cousin that stayed behind had gone to several of our homes and given us reports of our homes. By that evening, we were anxious to get home. We had a meeting as a group and decided that, as resourceful as this group had been, we were going to head back to Vidor in the morning. We had enough to be self-reliant when we returned and those that needed to continue on would leave from Vidor. Sunday morning came.
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paradoxes