The rain rain rain came down down down and washed away poor kidlets. It has been a week of rain and about five of the shacks of people we know were flooded. One woman told us she woke in the night to find her children crying while floating on their mattress towards door. We decided that we needed to do something, though our resources were limited. Dave got together with a friend and set out to find sand bags. Can you believe it, there are no sand bags in Albania! Dave tried the Red Cross, European Union help organizations and every other help organization that we could think of. No luck on any of them. Finally, they came up with the idea of using flour sacks.
You should have seen him covered in flour from the 200 used sacks he had gathered. Unfortunately there was no camera handy. A local church heard a rumor of what was going on and offered to finance the bags and materials and helped with the bagging.
So after two days of foot work, getting everything together, and a full day of hard labor in calf depth sticky mud...
...a sandbag....oops, flour bag wall was created around five homes. Sadly it's not really enough and their yards and the inside of their shacks are still covered in mud, but perhaps they will be able to sleep without the fear that the river will carry away their children.
For the moment there are smiles even in the midst of hardship.
8 comments:
Flour and water, Dave must have been covered with fresh dough by the end of the day, yumm! Hope the people and the flourbags will be the ones that win.
Oh my, how terrible to awaken to see your loved ones floating away!!! And what a great thing to be able to do some little part to help! And more than all of that, perhaps this will be just the key to open up a heart to Him!!! May the flour sack wall hold the floods away and may the inhabitants learn to build their house on the Rock! :D
Oh my son, how it warms my heart to see you helping others so far away from here. May your helping warm their hearts to the Gospel. Love, Mom
Need a new lumberjack shirt Dave?
How long does flour last in a flood? Good gravy!
Ariel-well fresh dough yes, but would you want to eat the bread? :)
Kelly- I myself just can't imagine living like that. I was thinking of the wise man story the entire time of this crisis. Oh how foolish is man.
Mom- We are glad to be here, I only wish we could see family more
Terry-I'm going to leave Dave to answer for himself... As to the gravy same response as Ariel. Would you want to eat that gravy. Hmmmm. Hepititus stew. Blah!
How are the houses doing now? Did the flooding stop? I hope the flour bags helped long enough to outlast the storm. Memories of helping to dig out the gross mucky mud (was it at the camp in Tapia)after the floods in the 80s. Being kids we thought it was fun but it was still pretty gross.
Sal
It's been dry since we put the bags in, but it looks like rain today, so we'll see how they do.
I didn't get to dig out the mud at Tapia. I love that park.
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