Sometimes It Takes Muddy Sunglasses In Order To See Clearly

Finally--at last I found my $10 pair of sunglasses that I misplaced a few weeks ago.  I found them just in time to head off to Ft. Payne Alabama for the Piedmont Convocation’s mission trip (Number II).  Our team of 16 drove through some horrendously devastated areas to arrive at our first work site Monday morning.  And when we arrived, I must admit that I was a little disappointed.  Most of the trees were still up.  All the houses were in tact and we were clearing out a corner of someone’s grazing pasture.  

Very quickly I noticed that these trees that we were cutting up and moving to the road for the FEMA trucks to haul off were sitting in the middle of whole bunch of poison ivy.  This worried me as I am highly allergic.  Undaunted I soon found a spot that seemed to be ivy free.  As the day went on we cut and cleared and cut and cleared.  All the while I used my cheap sunglasses more for eye protection while running the chainsaw as we enjoyed a fairly cloudy first day.  With all the dust and grime from cutting and moving the logs, cleaning my sunglass with my shirt became a frequent chore. 

As the day went on the someone whose pasture we were clearing came out and worked with us.  His name was Buddy Mullins.  Buddy brought with him a jerry-rigged ridding lawnmower which allowed him to lift large logs and take them out to the road.  It wasn’t long before Ginny Georgion sweet talked him out of his ride and was doing all the tractor work herself.  It was awesome!  We learned a lot about Buddy this past Monday.  We learned that he had broken his back a while ago.  We learned how appreciative he was of all our help.  We learned that if we hadn’t come along to help him, those massive tree’s probably would have stayed there for years.

By the End of our work-day, my glasses were coved in mud.  I was so drenched in sweat that when I used my t-shirt to clean off the dust and grime, all it did was smear mud around those plastic lenses.  But a funny thing happened as the day went on…the mud built up and I began to see more clearly.  It took muck and mud and a little fatigue to do its work on me for the “scales to fall off my eyes.”  I was able to see that that someone whose home we were at had a name and a story.  And part of Buddy’s story was his thankfulness.  He was thankful to be alive.  He was thankful that the tornado just skimmed the treetops at his place.  And he was thankful because he knew the folks just 10 miles up the road who weren’t so lucky.

So yes, I can see clearly now.  All of the area that we are working in is influenced in one way or another by that tragic April 27^th day.  It seems that there were 7 or 8 tornados that bounced around this DeKalb County Alabama.  Some were F-1’s and some were f-5’s.  Some were on the ground for a while and some did their damage by not quite being on the ground.  Anyone driving by today could see some signs of the amazing power of Mother Nature in this region, but if you didn’t bother to stop and ask, you would never know the amazing stories that go along with the people who live here.  I’m able to see this clearly now after sweating away some of my judgment and preconceived notions.  It seems that the muddier my sunglasses get, the more clearly I’m able to see. 

By ~ Joseph Smith 

Buddy watching Ginny drive his "Tractor"