Five Year Anniversary

Five years ago the McGuire family took our first beach vacation to Gulf Shores, Alabama. If you told me then that I'd know the highways down to and around the Gulf of Mexico like the back of my hand, the geography of which city is where, who lives in any of those places I would have never believed it. I and many of you have now been to so many of the beaches, churches, and restaurants, worked in people's homes, gained lifetime friends, and have come to feel we have a home and family in the lower latitudes of our country.

Five years ago hurricane Katrina converted the beach road along Gulf Shores where my family had played with the fishes a few days before into open ocean. Floating casinos in Mississippi were made beached hulks. Hundreds of thousands of homes, churches, businesses, and livelihoods were washed away by the waves and the water along with several thousand people's lives.

Thousands of us now know our way around post disaster Slidell, Bayou La Batre, Chalmette, New Orleans, Mandeville. We will never forget the people who's homes we have cleaned out and rebuilt, the friends we worked with, and the brotherly love we experienced working in New Orleans.

In those 5 years, we have also served in Iowa, Houston, Galveston, and Bucyrus here in Ohio. Some of us have gone on to other mission work as a result of our experience and have engaged others. I'm sure, like you, my outlook, priorities, and life is now quite different than it was before my involvement in relief work with you brothers and sisters.

The work has slowed and we've gone back to our lives for the most part. I'm back to working a full time IT Security job again. I'm at AEP downtown working to secure the gridSmart project. Our hearts for missions and relieving the suffering of those stricken by disaster, however, are still strong.

With the projected path of Hurricane Earl inching closer and closer to North Carolina and the New England states, we are reminded of the mission God put before us 5 years ago. Then we saw thousands of people in dire circumstances. Third world calamity conditions, right here in the USA. We know we risk a storm like Katrina, Ike, or even the localized flooding we've seen in Nashville and other places this past year will continue to require the skills we've built over the last 5 years.

Servants Unite, though dormant currently is ready to spin up when the need for volunteers to serve in disaster relief rises again. I remain committed to continuing the mission with you whether we need to send volunteers to Cape Hatteras next week or Miami next year. Keep monitoring the blog for updates and needs.

John McGuire
President
Servants Unite!