Spring Break...In Jacksonville, Alabama!

Wednesday and Thursday, March 21 and 22 Our last report indicated that a small team would be returning to Jacksonville on Thursday, March 22 to finish a job they had started the day before.  The team that worked in Jacksonville on Wednesday and Thursday, March 21 and 22, took down a tangle of 5 trees on property just northwest of the Jacksonville State University campus.

Our Wednesday-Thursday team posing with property owner Amy Bryant holding her 5 year old daughter, Cherry Sky, and her 12 year old son Nathaniel John Houston, consisted of (left to right) Tim Smith, Buddy Williams, Boyd Martin and Henry Averyt.  John Calhoun and Rev. Henry Gibson also participated but are not pictured. And Asbury UMC's skid steer, Abel, is in the background on his trailer.

Before (head-on view): Work in Process (head-on view):

Before (side view): Work in Process (side view):

After (side view):

We took Friday off, as previously indicated, and rested for our return to Jacksonville on Palm Sunday afternoon, March 25, prepared to spend our "Spring Break" week in Jacksonville serving under the auspices of our traditional travel partner, Samaritan's Purse. We really enjoy working with Samaritan's Purse.  They are a highly organized national disaster response ministry organization and we have worked with them several times over the last 5 years from Durant, MS in the west, to Augusta, GA in the east, to Monterey, TN in the north and to Hattiesburg, MS and Albany, GA to the southwest and southeast.  In Jacksonville they came prepared with their 18-wheeler "DR" (Disaster Response) Command Trailer, an equipment/tool trailer, a kitchen trailer, a 6-private-stalls shower trailer and a 4-room bunkhouse trailer (for the on-site SP staff who would be working there for SP's 3-week commitment to remain in that community).

SP's host church in Jacksonville is First Baptist Church, located just 2 blocks east of the JSU campus. It is amazing that the church was as unaffected by the tornado as it was.  All around it - to the north, to the east, to the south and to the west - trees were snapped off or toppled over and buildings were destroyed. But the church came through the storm relatively unscathed! Only the small corner spires surrounding the church steeple and 6 columns supporting a walkway between the sanctuary and the day school buildings were damaged!

Our overnight accommodations were located in a Sunday School classroom on the second floor of the building connecting the sanctuary building to the day school building. We're used to blowup mattresses and sleeping bags when we deploy to overnight locations but this time, because there were going to be up to 9 of us staying overnight at one time, SP gave us our own "Cutters for Christ Bedroom."

The daily routine is always quite the same: wake-up at 5:30 am (even earlier for some!); sack lunch preparation between 6:00 am and 6:30 am; a home-cooked breakfast at 6:30 am; a short musical instruments/singing presentation followed by a devotion at 7:00 am; orientation and safety presentation at 7:30 am; team assignments and work site departure at 8:00 am; field work from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm; return to the church between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm; showers and relaxation between returning to the church and 6:00 pm; a home-cooked dinner at 6:00 pm; "sharing time" (where daily salvations are celebrated when they occur and stories about how SP volunteers saw God at work during their workday are told) from the conclusion of dinner until approximately 7:30 pm; free time from the conclusion of sharing time to 9:00 pm; quiet time beginning at 9:00 pm and lights-out at 10:00 pm. After our first day we were probably asleep even before 9:30 pm every evening. We were usually quite tired!

All meals, devotion and sharing times are taken communally in the church's fellowship hall. Home-cooked meals were tasty and food was plentiful. The availability of overnight accommodations and meals - along with SP's assessment of work sites and solicitation/acquisition of right of entry authorizations from property owners - are the things we like most about deploying with SP. And a mutual relationship of respect between CFC and SP has developed over the years as we have become a "known" work force to the SP North American Disaster Ministry management at their North Wilkesboro, NC headquarters, as well as to the SP field staff at their disaster deployment sites across the southeastern United States.

As many time as we have seen the aftermath of tornadoes, hurricanes and derecho winds, we were still impressed with the devastation of this storm.  The National Weather Service eventually categorized the storm in Jacksonville as an EF-3 tornado.  In Calhoun and Cleburne alone it was reported as remaining on the ground for 34.29 miles, from just north of Wellington, AL traveling all the way east to the Georgia border, and 1.08 miles wide at its widest point.

What we found in Jacksonville was trees pushed over with root balls exposed and trees snapped off leaving limbless "hags" or totem poles standing behind - all certain evidence of a tornado. Windows were blown out, trees crushed homes and cars, winds removed building roofs and walls, and debris was scattered everywhere.

Monday, March 26 Monday morning was very cold and windy. We dressed in layers but those layers would be shed quite quickly once we began working. We were assigned husband-and-wife SP Team Leaders from Florida and two additional very hard-working volunteers from North Carolina who served as additional "pickers/pullers" with our CFC team for the entire week.

Our Monday team was comprised of (standing, left to right) Buddy Williams, Tim Smith, Pink Folmar, Boyd Martin, John Calhoun, Deborah Sparkman, Vernon and Patty Fryer (our SP Team Leaders), Bob Thompson, John Boettner, (kneeling) Karen Hoffman and Henry Averyt. And in the background: Asbury UMC's skid steer, Abel!

Our first assignment was at the home of Mike and Elaine Nelson, located only 1/2-mile from our host church!

The Nelsons:

Before: After:

Boyd Martin is traditionally our 2-D chainsaw artist and at almost every property to which we deploy he cuts our Cutters for Christ 3-crosses logo into a remaining root ball stump or large tree limb we've been unable to cut and move. It's a difficult thing to do with anything longer than an 18" chainsaw and dangerous kickback is always a possibility. So he exercises great care when making these logos; and he gets better and better at them every time!

Our work on the Nelson property actually took us all morning and when we declared the job complete and took our lunch break on site we additionally enjoyed homemade blueberry muffins baked by CFC team member Nancy Miller who sent them along with this writer to share with our team members on our first day out. We always enjoy Nancy's baking when we deploy and we thank her for this addition to our sack lunches today!

Our second assignment of the day was right next door at the home of Vanda Holder, shown here with her son-in-law.

Mrs. Holder and Brent Chandler:

Before: After:

Before: After:

After a final raking and cleaning of both job sites it was nearing 4:00 pm so our SP Team Leaders declared the day completed and we headed back to the church to shower and prepare for the evening activities.

Tuesday, March 27 Our on-site SP Volunteers Coordinator was happy to keep our entire team working together for the week (recognizing that some of our CFC members would be coming and going throughout the week).

Our Tuesday Team consisted of (standing, left to right) Deborah Sparkman, Karen Hoffman, John Boettner, John Calhoun, Boyd Martin, Tim Smith, Ray Miller, Buddy Williams, property owner Erica Dickseon, (kneeling, left to right) Betsy Head, Bob Thompson, Cindy Barr, Pink Folmar and Ken Clements.

Our team today would be the largest of the whole week and that would prove to be fortunate as every hand was needed to take the place of our "12th man," Abel, the Asbury UMC skid steer that was sidelined with broken steel-belt treads on his right track which put him out of commission for the rest of the week! Working without Abel certainly reinforced how much that tractor contributes to our abilities to accomplish our assignments at each job site!

We were blessed, however, that SP brought its own skid steer to Jacksonville and we used it as Abel's backup on two of our jobs during the week - this being one of them.

(As I am composing this report Abel's tracks have already been replaced with new "heavy-duty" treads and he is ready to go back to work whenever called upon to do so!) As noted in the team photo above, we were assigned to the home of Erica and Jamie (not pictured) Dickseon, again at a property not but a half mile northeast of the church. (As it would turn out, all of our assignments throughout the week but one would be located in that half-mile circumference around the church - quite a difference from the 10-30 miles we traveled between our SP host churches and worksites on other deployments!) As soon as we saw what needed to be done at the Dickseon property we quickly put in our call for the SP skid steer and its driver/pilot, Don Callicott, to come and assist us as soon as he could. But because of the volume of work for that tractor at the many sites SP had deployed teams today, it and he would not arrive until well after lunchtime. So we were left to cut vegetative debris (tree limbs and tree trunks) and tote construction debris (metal roofing, framing 2x4's and roofing plywood, shingles and tar paper) the old-fashioned way - by the wheelbarrow and handful - to the street.

Erica Dickseon:

Before: After:

Before: After:

Between our "before" and "after" photos - which once again took us all day to accomplish - we stopped for lunch and several team members abandoned their sack lunches in favor of the Red Cross neighborhood-food-truck-delivered McAlister's Deli boxed lunches. And Ray Miller also brought along a batch of homemade brownies that Nancy Miller had baked for us today, as well. Thank you again, Nancy, for treating us in this special way!

Ray Miller prepares Nancy Miller's brownies for us during our lunch break - YUM!!!

We also experienced some excitement while at this job site. The hiss of escaping air accompanied by a pungent sulfur smell - along with two workers from another job site running down the hill toward us and excitedly imploring us to shut off the skid steer engine (which by this time had arrived) and any other motorized equipment we might be running - announced a free-flowing natural gas line leak! The Jacksonville fire department and city emergency services were called and they arrived within minutes. And within 20 minutes after that the line had been capped off, an all-clear was announced and we resumed our work. It was sort of a cheating work break, but we took advantage of it to rest a bit.

A fire engine and an emergency utility vehicle park in the street just one home site away from where we were working as responders begin the task of shutting off the gas leak.

Wednesday, March 28

Our team today would consist of (left to right) Boyd Martin, John Calhoun, Ken Clements, Karen Hoffman, Deborah Sparkman, Patty Fryer, Tim Smith, Buddy Williams, Vernon Fryer and Bob Thompson.

We would get two job assignments today.  Our first one was at the home of Danny and Phyllis (not pictured) Presley. Danny is the pastor of Greater Faith Outreach Church located between Jacksonville and Anniston.

Pastor Danny Presley:

One of Pastor Danny's cars that had been parked outside during the tornado.

Pastor Danny and others before us had been working on debris removal from his property but the "hard work" - trees hung up in other trees, widowmaker limbs still dangling, standing "hags" (the totem pole remains of a tree stripped of its limbs and snapped off about 20 feet above the ground, and remaining tree stumps - still needed attention.

Before: After:

Before: After:

I get to be our 3-D chainsaw artist from time to time and there was enough tree trunk height left for me to shape a small cross into it - a reminder to any viewer of it that God continues to share His peace, love, hope and joy with them...no matter what the circumstances.

Following lunch we took our first out-of-town trek to Weaver, AL - located southwest of Jacksonville - to the home Bonnie and Craig Smith (and their dog Lily Bell).

The Smiths:

A huge hardwood tree had blown over in their backyard during the last straight-line wind storm that came through their community. (This was not actually tornado-related damage, but we go where SP sends us so if they thought it was an appropriate assignment, we were going to do our best to help out these property owners). Unfortunately, as the base of the downed tree was some 40" in diameter, without Abel we could not move it and our SP team leaders told the Smiths that the SP skid steer would be back at some point to help remove it.

Before: After:

Before: After:

The 40" base:

We are especially pleased to report that while we were working on the tree in the Smith's backyard, chaplains with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association were visiting with Bonnie. And following their conversation Bonnie declared that she came to accept Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior! Praise God! Samaritan's Purse counts her declaration as a salvation and this Cutters for Christ team was excited to have shown God's love for her through our actions. We hope that in some small way we contributed to her decision.

Thursday, March 29 This would effectively be our last full work day in Jacksonville for this week. Everyone was tired and wanted to get back to their home churches for Good Friday services and Abel had an appointment to get his new tracks put on the next day and would need to be transported to the repair shop in Pinson the next morning. So we asked for an exciting last assignment.  And get one we did!

Our Thursday team was made up of (front row, left to right) David Moser, Bob Thompson, Tim Smith, Buddy Williams, (back row, left to right) Deborah Sparkman, Ken Clements, Karen Hoffman, Vernon Fryer, Don Callicott, Patty Fryer, Boyd Martin; and behind the post with his face hidden, John Calhoun.

We went to this plantation home, originally built in the 1800's and now the property of Sean and Caroline Wellesley, immediately bordering the JSU campus on the north. There we found 27 cedar trees which had formed a wind barrier border on the north and west sides of their property all blown over, but still attached in the ground by their root balls.  And on the east side of their property was another cedar tree similarly bending over and in the middle of their property was a poplar tree, half of which had broken off and was leaning against a boat a Cutter (how about that?!) cabin cruiser on its transport trailer in the yard! All hands, all cutters, all pullers and the SP skid steer were all needed for this job!

The Wellesleys:

Before: After:

Before: After:

Before: After:

Before: After:

Being a full-service team a few of our members even changed the flat tire on Sean's truck which apparently had been flat for many months!

Before: After:

Friday, March 30 After breakfast we were recognized by the SP site staff leadership and told we'd be welcomed back at any time. John Calhoun planned on staying through the day and working with another team and at least Buddy and Boyd said they were hoping to return next week for maybe 1 to 3 more days of work. Some of us just can't get enough of running our chainsaws!

Our Friday farewell photo (with two Billy Graham Evangelistic Association chaplains - the women in blue shirts - joining in).

Some Fun Facts Cutters for Christ was formally organized on Good Friday, 2013 (March 29). We celebrated our 5 year (and one day) anniversary this Good Friday 2018 (March 30) while working with Samaritan's Purse. With this deployment we have maintained our 100% safety record over that 5 year period. NO personal injuries have occurred.  We are blessed and thankful for this safety record and will continue to work safely, within our skills and capabilities, and think smartly about the assignments we are asked to undertake in order that we might continue this record hopefully for the next 5 years! Our blog is always being updated. Please stay in touch with us by reading our blog from time to time at cuttersforchrist.bolgspot.com.

In Conclusion So yes, we're entering the Spring season of severe storms. One has come and gone. Before this tornado we were blessed with a relatively quiet period of weather. But we know other storms will come. So as we prepare to deploy again in the weeks and months ahead we hope that several of you reading this will come work with us if you are able.  And as we always ask, even if you cannot deploy with us, won't you please pray for our safety as we work in the fields and won't you especially pray for the survivors of the storms who we will serve? Pray that they will know that our Lord Jesus Christ will never forsake them, and that He will always love them and lift them up with hope no matter how devastating any storm may be. We serve our risen Lord with servant's hearts. Cutters for Christ team members do not seek compensation, recognition, notoriety, fame, or even thanks of any sort for what we do. Jesus instructed us to love Him, to love one another, to be disciples and to go make disciples of the whole world. Hopefully as we let God's love and joy shine through us as we go about "restoring HOPE in Jesus' name" and lessening one burden - cleaning up debris that a storm victim may have no idea how they will do that themselves - we will accomplish that objective from time to time. For that is our real purpose. And we do it for the glory of God and His kingdom.

In His Service, Bob

The Best Laid Plans...

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!

Flexibility is the mantra of disaster relief work. This morning the Calhoun County EMA sent out a note requesting that teams NOT come to Jacksonville until Friday. We had a team back working in Jacksonville beginning early this morning (we were there even before the EMA sent out its request!). The team worked the entire day on just one piece of property where 5 trees had been uprooted.  There's still about 4 more hours of work remaining to finish that job and they'll do that tomorrow morning and then call it quits for the week. We will NOT work in Jacksonville on Friday nor will we field additional teams tomorrow (Thursday). However, we WILL be back in Jacksonville for the entire week next week - starting at 8 pm Sunday night, March 25 and finishing at 5 pm on Friday, March 30 - working under the auspices of our travel partner, Samaritan's Purse. We will be contacting our CFC team members later tonight to ask who can participate next week and when. SP will need to know ASAP so they can plan for our arrival Sunday night. It's our intent to live in the accommodations SP will make available to us so those of us who can spend multiple days there won't have to worry about traveling back and forth between Jacksonville and Birmingham each day.  Day workers will be welcomed, of course, but we will hope that many of our CFC members will be able to commit to multiple days of work, if not the whole week. Once again, NO MORE WORK FOR OUR CFC TEAMS IN JACKSONVILLE THIS WEEK. While you may wish to participate individually on Friday - and you may certainly do so - please don't be disappointed if you don't find a CFC presence there on that day.

In His Service, Bob Bob Thompson Cutters for Christ Disaster Response Ministry Deployment/Team Coordinator _____________________________________________________________ Email: bobthompson.cfc@gmail.com Cellphone: 205-276-3030

Jacksonville Tornado Deployment

We got the call early this morning from Rev. Randy Burbank, the North Alabama Conference United Methodist Church Disaster Ministry Coordinator, telling us that all we had already been seeing on television this morning from Cullman and Jacksonville was, indeed, reality, and that we should deploy ASAP to the Jacksonville site where the call for chainsaw teams had been requested. After hasty text messages and phone calls to 10 of our most frequently available "first responders" we were able to arrange for 4 of us to meet in Jacksonville at 10:30 am with chainsaws and skid steer ready to work. Today marked the maiden voyage of "Oz," Asbury UMC's new tow truck which they purchased expressly to haul "Abel," the intrepid skid steer, from job site to job site. Boyd reports that Oz handled wonderfully. We want to especially recognize and thank Asbury UMC for its disaster response ministry mission commitment and for making this very significant and important addition to its DRM hardware inventory.

Our four human team participants today were Bob Suellentrop, Boyd Martin, Buddy Williams and Bob Thompson. Oz is to the left and Abel is behind us!

As you might expect, there was quite a bit of confusion and wonder on the part of the clean-up organizers this morning. Calhoun County EMA asked everyone wishing to volunteer to sign in at the Jacksonville Community Center and so, after greeting the senior pastor at Jacksonville First UMC, Rev. Lyle Holland (and learning from him that only one tree on church property had come down in the storm but he felt that the power company would need to attend to it as it had taken down power lines when it fell), we made our way to the sign-in site. Hundreds of people were already there ahead of us, all awaiting work assignments. Upon completing the required paperwork - a volunteer form and a liability release - a few of the EMA organizers who recognized our yellow shirts quickly gave us their mandatory "safety lecture" and color-of-the-day wrist bracelets and asked if we would work with a team of 6 Talledega firefighters who were going to be tackling some of the larger trees and more significant debris in the northeast part of town which was hardest hit by the tornado. We readily agreed and were sent out to the mustering site for further instructions. When we arrived there we were greeted by a Jacksonville firefighter who was coordinating the mustering site. He was in radio contact with someone in the field and every place he checked they were still awaiting the power company to shut off the electricity before we could go into the neighborhoods to begin work. Finally, the Jacksonville firefighter said he really didn't think we'd get into the debris fields today and he suggested we simply come back tomorrow for reassignment. They would not let us drive up into the neighborhoods to see the extent of the damage for ourselves. We could see Jacksonville State University buildings just to our north but we were not permitted to travel there either. We understand that assessments may still have been being undertaken and they didn't want unnecessary cars or onlookers on the streets, but still we were disappointed that we did not get to help any property owners today. So before heading back to the Community Center to sign out for the day we decided to stop at the church once again to see what might have been done with the tree that had fallen on its property. The power company had just removed the tree from the street and were resetting power poles when we arrived. So at least we could cut some branches there, pile up the debris and clean up the parking lot, thereby helping the church in that small way. So we came home knowing that we accomplished a little, at least.

Before (note that the tree fell from the property across the street and onto the street and the church's parking lot): CFC chainsawyers at work:

Abel on the job: After:

TOMORROW and beyond...

We expect that our chainsaw team(s) will be needed at least through the end of this week, and maybe even beyond that, once all the area properties have been assessed and the power lines have been dropped so teams can get in and work safely. Our plan going forward is to meet each morning - as many as can participate - between 8:30 and 9:00 am at the Jacksonville Community Center, 501 Alexandria Road SW, 36265 (your GPS should take you right to it). Once you've signed your forms and you've listened to the "safety lecture" one time you will not have to do so again, but you will have to pick up a color-of-the-day wrist band each day. That's how they plan to regulate and monitor access to the work sites. For those leaving from the west or south of Birmingham, please know that your travel time will be approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes each way. So leave in time to get there by 8:30 or so! Cutters will need full PPE to work on our CFC team(s): helmet, eye protection, chainsaw chaps and steel-toed boots. Ear protection is strongly recommended but not required. And of course bring gasoline, bar oil and your chain sharpening tools or replacement chains. Those who have not yet deployed with a CFC team this calendar year will need to complete (just once, as well) an annual CFC participant form, too, which we will make available to you on site. Food and water appeared to be abundantly available today for volunteers but we don't know whether we'll be able to make it back to the community center for lunch in the days ahead so we always recommend you bring a lunch, water and electrolyte replacement hydration. Remember your sunscreen and insect repellent. We've found that having a lawn chair, too, is nice for rest breaks.

If you cannot work with us this week, may we ask that you pray for our safety as we work and that you especially pray for the survivors of the storms who we will serve, that they will know that our Lord Jesus Christ will never forsake them, and that He will always love them and lift them up with hope no matter how devastating any storms may be. As always, please remember to stay in touch with us by reading our blog at cuttersforchrist.bolgspot.com from time to time!

In His Service, Bob Bob Thompson Cutters for Christ Disaster Response Ministry Deployment/Team Coordinator