April's Fury

No, this isn't a photograph of one of the April tornados (tornadoes?) that hit Alabama last month. This is actually a picture of a tornado that hit Iowa in 2008, but the picture helps me understand the complete devastation that we've seen in some of the rural communities around Decatur. It's just indescribable. Whole houses gone. Nothing in one piece. Huge trees reduced to splinters.

But Decatur itself was spared. And it was spared for a reason: so that we might serve our neighbors (in nearby communities) who had their houses ripped to shreds. And it's been encouraging to see that kind of neighbor-service spring to life! DPC has sent out a number of teams.

We were actually supposed to be hosting a Local Mission Conference ("Missions Right Here At Home") with special speaker Jim Hatch on the weekend after the fury. But with the widespread power outage, we decided to postpone.

Meanwhile, the Local Missions Conference came to us. As we were going through the rubble & debris of what use to be someone's house, a member of the church family turned & asked me, "So, how do you like this Local Missions Conference?"

Indeed.