Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThisThe Sacrifice
Barbara Ham, a Red Cross volunteer from Arkansas, called her family from the hurricane zone and got gut-wrenching news. Her grown son had just backed over his own four-year-old with his truck. "Is he okay?" Barbara asked, but before her son could answer, the call was lost. Ham got in her car and started heading home. She repeatedly dialed her cell phone as she drove. Finally, she got through."He's going to be okay, Mom," her son said.
"Do you need me there?"
"Yes, I do. But those people need you more."
So Barbara turned back around.
We were 150 strong and growing every day, working shoulder to shoulder, sharing small talk about our real jobs and families. Pastor Mike Mau from Benicia, California, a husky former jazz drummer in his early 50s, often sang to himself as he moved heavy boxes around inside a freezer truck or sorted supplies on pallets. The work seemed to give him deep satisfaction. Mau had jumped on a plane hoping to join search-and-rescue efforts or comfort victims. Instead, he ended up here, in this closed-off compound lifting boxes of food.
Gypsy La'More, a stunning 25-year-old event planner from Sacramento, rose every day before 5 a.m., and was usually still flitting cheerfully from task to task at 10 or 11 o'clock at night. She didn't believe in breaks. Yet she really wanted to work in the evacuee shelters, doing the mental health counseling she was trained for.
"Then why don't you try to do it?"
"Because this is what I've been asked to do."
It was Pastor Mike who said: "These days everybody wants to be a big deal. But sometimes it's a big deal to be a little deal."
I thought I knew what Mike meant, but I, too, was craving direct contact, so I arranged to go on an ERV run to the community of Folsom to give hot meals to some 400 people.
9 Medical Myths Busted
Video: How to Eat Healthy While Traveling
10 Great Gift Book Ideas
How to Cope With a Depressed Spouse
Joke: I was leading a tour through Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico…
Advertisement 
