Making things happen

... with integrity

Monday November 9, 2003 Volume V Number 47

Early Wednesday morning during our weekly men’s group meeting, it hit Mark like a message coming down from Mt. Sinai.  “We can’t leave town next week.  We just can’t,” he proclaimed with the conviction of a prophet.  “It’s just not right.  We shouldn’t pull sixty plus guys out of their home town, even though it’s a good cause.  We need to consider canceling our retreat plans up on the mountain a hundred miles away, take the energy and resources of these men, and go to work helping to rebuild our community.  That’s what we’ve got to do,” as though we needed convincing.

Curiously, the same message from Sinai also came to our Pastor.  At about the same time, I might add.

When they collaborated on the telephone shortly after the epiphany, the divine instruction got confirmed.   Mark quickly got on the phone with Ridge, the President and CEO of the conference center.  “We made a commitment, and we will keep our end of the bargain,” Mark told Ridge.  “But our town has been hit hard, and we need to help.  We’ve got to focus on our community.  And we want to do it in Jesus’ name,” he added, knowing full well we made a contractual agreement.

“I’ll check with my people,” Ridge said.  “I understand, my friend.  I’ll see what we can do.”

Within five minutes, Ridge left a message on Mark’s cell voice mail, and confirmed it.  “You guys are off the hook,” he said.  “We are behind you completely.  We know something of what your neighbors and friends have suffered because of the Paradise Fire.  Consider it our contribution to the cause.  Get out there and make something good happen.”

Something good happened.

* * * * * *

Todd Wendorff, our speaker, explained, “Men become what they are meant to be in the company of other men.” 

And I guess that’s what happened at our little country church this week.

Friday night, somewhere about six o’clock, men began to gather.  We ate heartily, and already guys were telling fire stories – how the flames gathered momentum, lighting the night sky.  Narrow escapes as homes were evacuated; no time to plan.   No time to run through that little values-based exercise – what’s most important to me?  Just get out.  Now.  Some of the stories were second hand, but most were eye-witness accounts.  Guys fighting back as the flames approached - with weed-wackers and chain saws and tractors and rakes and shovels and water hoses and buckets and plain old sweat.  Women gathering up children and elderly neighbors with abandon headed out for an avenue of escape as parched, dry land gave up tinder fuel to the flames and gusts picked up the sparks, carrying countless little torches ready to light up the next neighborhood downwind. 

And then, after dinner, we sat down to review the damage to our community and plan an invasion.

This would be an invasion of volunteers – to heft sandbags, and dig trenches, and lay bales and straw tubes called waddle and spread seed, hoping some of it will take and germinate and grow in the coming rains, giving a jump-start to replace lost ground cover.

That week, word got out that a willing work crew was about to hit the streets.  Donations poured in.  We didn’t know until this week that a new attendee at our church owns eleven Subway stores.  They provided hearty lunches for over a hundred men.  Women prepared breakfast.  The Optimist Club in town cooked up a heap of spare ribs and barbecued chicken; a feast fit for manly carnivores, weary, hungry, fresh off the work line.  An erosion control specialist, a bearded leader of a man we now call Captain Dan, developed a plan.  He took his accumulated sick days, clearing his work calendar, to organize the teams and locate work sites.

All week long, he and our Pastor Bill contacted families up and down the country roads whose properties were damaged by the fires, homes just at the bottom of burned hillsides, fires that left deep and still smoldering ash and cinders, people who would welcome a volunteer work crew to bring badly needed materials to protect from the coming rains.  They identified some twenty-five sites.

Another strong man we’ve come to known as Watertruck Dave (this is the local legend who commandeered the water truck that saved nine homes in the Paradise Fire) ordered up the materials.  We agreed, this is what we need.  Dave, a general contractor, knows costs, and he quickly added up the expected bill:  $16,000 he thought.  Stakes.  Sandbags.  Waddle.  Silt fencing.  Next morning, he placed the order.  We needed delivery no later that Friday afternoon.

He also explained why the order was placed:  The Paradise Fire.  Homes in need.  Families in need.  Men willing to work.  The distributor said “Hold on a minute.”  And then, “I’ll call you right back, Dave.”  He went back to his calculator.  He checked in with his boss.

Shortly afterwards, the phone in Watertruck’s office rang – the bid was ready.  “We are behind you all the way, Dave,” said the man on the phone.  “We’ll need a ten-day pay to get you this price – but the total comes to six thousand-eight hundred dollars.”

Watertruck Dave could hardly speak.

Then they threw in some extras.  No charge.

* * * * *

Next: an unexpected call from Mariners Church – Newport Beach.

The advance team arrived about noon on Friday, just as plans for the weekend were finalized.  Eric, one of the pastors, handed our pastor a check.  We know just enough about you guys to want to offer this two thousand dollars without any strings attached, he said.  We trust you, and we believe in your people.  We want to help.

Then he sat down with his guys around a conference table and asked for more information.  They listened as we spoke about the damage.  We had fatalities. The Paradise Fire claimed two hundred and twenty residences.  These were more than houses – each was a home.  The community has been overwhelmed with clothing and foodstuffs and displaced people have been cared for all from the outside - more than can be distributed, in fact. 

Everyone knows that erosion control will be a major issue; the county established guidelines, and sent personnel into the community to explain what’s needed; but people are lost.  They need material.  They need know-how.  They need help.

There was a ceremonial shaking of the hands, a sincere prayer meeting, asking for God’s blessing on those who suffered loss and direction for taking our group of volunteers in a positive direction, and a fond farewell.

But on the way home, the men of Mariner’s made a call.  They committed to make good our ten-day commitment to pay.  “A check for the remaining $4,800 is on its way,” Eric reported.

That news set in motion a whole new set of opportunities. 

You’ll be reading more.

* * * * * * *

It’s Monday morning.  You are a leader.

Here’s what my attorney friend Mark wrote in a message to our guys this week: "A lot of us have been reading through Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Life and have been reminded that life isn’t about serving ourselves but rather it is all about serving God by serving those around us...  As I met with my Wednesday morning group of guys yesterday the Lord spoke to us in a mighty way and it became immediately clear to us that now is not the time to leave our community but rather to stay and serve our community." 

Which is what we did.

We are weary.  A most gratifying kind of weary.

None of us would choose crisis.  Tragedy.  Loss.  Devastating consuming fire that destroys everything in its path.  But none of us would undo the lessons learned at such awful times.  None of us would go back to the person we were: innocent, untested, detached, naïve - pre-crisis. 

It’s here in the crucible that we get something of a sense of the width and breadth and height and depth of the oceanic love of Him who loved us. 

It is the tie that binds.

It’s where we are on this Monday morning.

You, too.

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