Alexis B

Today I worked at command central. Well this would be like coming to any Salvation Army social service department and applying for assistance. The doors open at 8:00am close at 12-noon reopen at 1pm and closes at 5pm.

It is very organized here. People all come in one by one, take a number, and take a seat. My job was to gather each group up for there appointment times. We schedule around 100 per hour. So you can see we were see a lot of people.

I would ask each person if they had a Femma number and a ticket. I would then give them an application form; send them to the seats to fill out the application form. I would then call ten numbers up at a time to send them to a person would register them for their appointment. They would then be directed to another area to wait for their number to be called where they would see a case manager who would determine their needs and issue what we could for them.

Afterwards I was to put a Bible and a pamphlet back on each seat with a pen to start all over again for the next hour segment.

After each person has seen a caseworker they may come back to see me for supplies for their children. We had books, toys, bibles, baby formula, food, diapers bottles and clothing. I would also talk to the people, see how they are doing, pray with them if needed and just basically supply pastoral care if needed.

I did a lot of listening, I prayed with one person and I handed out a lot of children things. It was a great day.

So far we have had many stories. I hear a story today of a man who made it through all this and happy to still be alive after all he is only 100 years old to celebrate is 101 year birthday this April. God Bless him.

I heard of a lady today who gave birth to a woman during the storm. All is well and doing fantastic.

Everywhere you went people were always sharing their gratitude we are here. They were just pleased to see us.

I heard of a man who was passed out by alcohol and rode out the storm in his boat and when he woke up he was shocked to see what he saw. He apparently was glad to have been passed out cause he said if he had been sober there was a good chance he would have panicked and would have drowned.

The command centre was at Biloxi Yankee Stadium and this property was deemed to use the money from the McDonalds heritance to build a treatment facility just before Katrina hit.

There was a medical clinic set up here, Femma tent, Southern Baptist tent that are responsible for doing all our cooking for us. At another end were tents where people are living for now.

We all had a long but fulfilling exhausting day. We were rewarded by a fabulous buffet at the Imperial Casino. It was fabulous food.

Well it is time now to kick back rub some rub some A535 on our bones to release what ailed us. Good nights sleep for another full day tomorrow.

But first some interesting stats for you to read

Decision for Christ: 122
Pastoral Care: 53,371
Total meals Thursday: 3,188
Total snacks: 7,196
Total meals to date: 585,790
Daily Average Meals: 10451
Total Persons Served: 958,613
Day # 56

Each morning we do devotionals and today as Major Byron lead them he asked us to pray for and he prayed with us for Strength, courage, wisdom, endurance and compassion. To also keep the following triangle in mind as you pray, spiritual, physical, and emotional. Please do that for us if you are reading this blog.

God Bless the people here, the many other organization here, and us to serve the Lords people. God Bless the people of Gulf Port, Biloxi, and all the areas affected by Katrina.

Till tomorrow, good night.