Clean Up Time

We have been spending some of our time in a neighborhood close to us that was hard hit by the flood last weekend. Every house has a pile of ruined household items out front. Everything has been covered in a sticky mud.

We went down to help some an SIL missionary clean up her house. You can see the shelf Heidi was working on. Cleaning it wasn’t simply a matter of wiping off the outside. Mud was inside all the metal tubes.

If you look at the wall behind Carrie you can see that the wall is in the process of being washed. The water was up to around 6 feet. The lower part hasn’t been washed yet. An oil refinery nearby lost a lot of oil and some of the houses are having to deal with oil on top of mud. It is a real mess. Imagine your car covered with mud and oil inside and out.

The boys did a lot of scrubbing and helping move furniture. Wooden furniture can be cleaned, but anything with cushions on it is ruined.

I felt a bit like an archeologist. They kept bringing me mud covered items and I would clean them up and discover what they were. At one point I thought I was cleaning a glass lamp shade only to find it was a kitchen appliance.

After dealing with all that mud it is easier to understand why Noah didn’t jump out of his boat the moment it landed. I didn’t see any rainbows yesterday, but I did see this unusual tree trunk with a equally unusual flower growing in front of it and was reminded of the of our faithful and good Creator.