Walking in the Spirit in the Wake of the Storm

Odile, a level 3 hurricane, passed through Baja California Sur 3 weeks ago. With winds up to 200+km/h, it buffeted everything, knocked down signs and power poles, and leveled some houses. It was much worse in Los Cabos where they didn't have any land to take the brunt of the winds. Thankfully, not a lot of rain fell, but the winds did most of the damage. I have heard that 6 people died (ABC news says it was 5) because of the storm, 3 in their boats here in La Paz. We have a thriving boat community, mostly made up of people living the dream of retirement and freedom.
For us, it was the first time we had experienced winds of that magnitude. The first rain and winds started at 7 pm, but the winds woke us at 11 pm, howling with a ferocity unlike anything I had heard before. Our children scurried into our room for reassurance that they would be OK. Amazingly the electricity stayed on until about midnight. The windows were rattling so hard, I was starting to doubt they could hold up to the pressure. Noises from the roof had me imagining what could be rolling around up there. We sat on the bed, I told them to be calm, our house had been here for 30+ years and seemed to be strong. We prayed, we sang songs of praise, and we read from the Bible. All of a sudden a loud bang sounded, and we went to look out the back upstairs windows. Imagine our surprise to see a 5000 gallon plastic water tank lying on the cement in our back yard. It didn't come from our yard but from the store roof that is attached to our storage shed.
We played some card games, then we put headphones on the kids with music playing, and they managed to go back to sleep in their rooms.
Karlene noticed water coming in from the window, and I checked downstairs. The wind was blowing the rain around the seals in the windows and under the door. For the next 5 hours, Karlene and I mopped using our towels. Our backs complained, but we were glad we were safe inside, and imagined what it must be like in some of the houses we have seen others live in. At 5, it had slowed down a bit, and we both went to sleep. At 8, I was up, and went to survey the damage. Our Madagascar palm was broken off at the 8 foot mark, about 4 feet broken off. The date palm in the back was uprooted and leaning over. I uprighted it with some wire and hope it grows again.
Then I went outside our fence to see what had happened elsewhere. I could see trees toppled, branches broken off, wires knocked down and neighbours wandering around as I was, checking to see what had happened.
I got some gloves and went to see if I could help anyone else. Our house had nothing serious that needed immediate attention. I helped drag branches from one tree away from the driveway so a car could be used at one house. At another, I helped move pieces of a garage door that were bent up and was being taken apart. I climbed another roof to help a lady assess damage to her roof. But overall, in our neighbourhood, the biggest problem was trees and branches lying everywhere. A few chainsaws were buzzing, and some were using axes or machetes to chop the trees.
As dusk came, I decided to go for a drive to see what it looked like down the road. Keyana and Josiah joined me. Huge signs lay in twisted bars of metal, large deparment stores had parts of their walls blown away, the streets were littered with wreckage that we dodged, and street lights were turned in the wrong direction, or knocked down. Every intersection was a 4 way stop. When we got to Soriana, I was going to turn around, but noticed a small pickup with the hood up in the exit. A man, his wife and 3 kids were stranded. I thought I would be useless with my lack of mechanical knowledge, but then the thought popped in that I could at least give some light. So I turned around and shone my headlights on the truck. After a few minutes, his wife was in the truck trying to start it. It wouldn't fire. I asked what I could do for them. He mentioned a ride to a small hotel would be good. As they got their things together, I had the thought that we had a spare bedroom that they could squeeze into, as well as a couch that folds down. I asked the kids what they thought: one said we should invite them, the other was afraid as we had no idea who they were. These were the same thoughts I had going through my mind. I decided with a little prayer to make the offer, and see what they said. The husband looked surprised but accepted the offer immediately.
As we drove them back to our house, I chatted with Riggo and found out they were on there way home to Los Cabos from a vacation to the north. They had passed through the hurricane in their vehicle to get here. I found out later they had actually slept (if that was possible) in the small one bench toyota pickup as the hurricane passed over them. That with children 1, 3 and 6 years old. The winds had been strong enough to tip semi trucks over!
We didn't have much food to offer that night, so once I dropped off the family, Riggo and I went out to buy some hotdogs from a stand we noticed had opened. The line was long, so after 50 minutes, we headed back with some hot food. They had a cooler with shrimp they wanted to save, so I noticed there were lights on in parts of the city, so we headed out to look for ice. We were lucky to find an ice plant that had a long line...another hour later, we had ice.
We cooked most of the shrimp, placed some huge blocks of ice in the fridges, and iced the rest of the shrimp. Josiah and Keyana were great with the kids and played games with them. At midnight, we said good night.
We slept in a bit, then Riggo and I went to see if his pickup would start. I said a prayer before he tried to start it, and it started on the first try. We went back to our place and found out we didn't have tortillas. That was important to Riggo, so we went out to find some. After 30 minutes we found some in a store that were left over from Saturday.  His wife made shrimp for breakfast, it was excellent!
The kids wanted to play Settlers, so we played for an hour. They packed up and started to say good-byes. It was then that we found out that Riggo's wife had not thought it wise to accept the invitation to stay at a stranger's house, but now they wanted to know why we would do such a kind thing for them. I laughed a little, and said it was God's love that we wanted to share, and the Bible tells us that you never know when you might host angels without knowing it - Heb. 13:2. Riggo had a strange look on his face, then replied, you were the angels to us!
What a blessing it is to be able to bless others. When they drove away, we felt we had made some new friends, and our hearts were full.
Since then, we have been able to be a part of what our church body is doing to reach out to those in need, through cooking food for the hungry, rebuilding houses for those that had them knocked down, or putting roofs back on, and bringing water to areas that didn't have drinking water. We have felt that it was very little we could do, but glad to be able to do something for someone.
We pray that God would use these relationships and needs to draw these people to himself, and that their hearts would be open to Him. Pray with us in this...Jn. 6:44