Unforgettable!

After Katrina, I spent a week in a shelter -- the local elementary school.  It was an unforgettable experience in every way, but something happened Friday morning that I can never forget.

We had not eaten all week -- until Wednesday at noon, when somehow the fireman must have raided a store and returned with enough meat and cheese and bread to make sandwiches for everyone in the shelter.  We were so grateful, but that was the end of the available food, until Thursday evening, when somehow, a helicopter arrived with Meals -Ready-to-Eat for everyone in the shelter.  And the Budweiser plant had sent water in Budweiser cans for all of us.  How rich we all felt on Thursday!

In the middle of the night on Thursday, two Greyhound buses arrived from Houston to pick up the 150 Mexican workers in the shelter with us.  A man who had lost his Long-Beach-based business had sent for the buses to pick up all of his workers and their families, who had all been living in one apartment complex, also destroyed by the storm.  The business owner, after giving paychecks to all of his employees and loading them on the buses for Houston, said to me, "I have a mini-schoolbus full of food for the rest of the people in the shelter.  What do you want me to do with it?"

As it was then around mid-night, I suggested that we wait until morning to distribute the food.  When morning came, the Red Cross arrived and commandeered the office for their organizational meeting.  They insisted that we could not feed people until they had taken a census of those registered in the shelter, because those would be the only people we could feed.

In the meantime, the people in the neighborhood surrounding the school had been coming to the shelter for food; they had babies and young children, but no refrigeration, nor formula for bottles, nor milk, etc.  Unfortunately, we had nothing to give them ourselves.  When I saw that we would not be able to distribute the MRE's left in the office until after noon, I told the business owner that we would begin handing out the food he had brought, and I told him how the people in the neigborhood needed food also.  "That's okay," he said, "feed everyone who comes; I have plenty."

We opened the back doors of the small bus and began making sandwiches; he had brought cold meat, cheese, bread, chips, and Gator-aid.  When the neighborhood people saw a line behind the schoolbus, they started coming also and getting in line.  We made sandwiches for everyone in the shelter, all the neighbors, and whoever came for seconds.  Every now and then, the Mexican employee would start looking around the bus, under the seats, etc, and then he would say, "We have no more bread."  The businessman would then say, "Yes we do; look under the seat."  And then, somehow, more bread would appear from under the seat.  A few minutes later, the employee would say, "We have no more meat."  "Yes we do; look under the seat," would come the answer -- and then, we would have more meat.  I was in total awe that day as we fed over 400 people and never ran out of food.  The potato chips ran out, but never the meat, cheese, bread, or drink. 

Later that day, I ran afoul of the Red Cross workers who insisted that we had only enough food for the people in the shelter.  "We have enough," I said; 'when we give out all we have, more will appear."  They decided my services were no longer needed in the office, and I was "let go." 

To this day, I still laugh at the lesson I learned in the shelter.  God knows how to provide for however many people are there.  We need not fear to give all we have; more will be supplied if needed.