Little Yellow Army

I was blessed to go with members of my church to help in the recovery work in the Rockaways, a section of Queens that was really decimated by Superstorm Sandy.

Here's a little video that was made the day I was there: (warning: beautiful, but you may cry)



I'm so grateful for a church that's so well-organized that we could mobilize quickly to give good Christian service to our neighbors in this beautiful city. The devastation here is tremendous; I've been blessed to be pretty unscathed through it all, but some people have literally lost everything.

It was very cool to be out there with the NYPD, FEMA, the Red Cross, the Department of Sanitation, the utility crews, and everyone else who has been working basically 24/7 since the storm. Each time one of their trucks would pass us, or we them, as we worked our way to where our help was needed, I'd raise my hands and cheer for whoever they were, and they would honk and cheer back. It was such a wonderful sense of community and belonging. I'll never forget it.

They were so kind and wonderful to us when we were there helping. Everywhere we went, people were happy to see us (they recognized our yellow vests), and one woman even exclaimed from her porch, "You're angels!"

I didn't feel like an angel. I was covered in mud, and I didn't know how much I had really helped. I came home and took a hot shower, something they cannot do there as they still have no hot water or power. They're cold and exhausted but resilient. I felt like I gained so much more from my time there than they did from my help.

I'll always remember this as the year where I spent the Thanksgiving season learning just how much I have to be grateful for.