January 16, 2011 Sunday – 7:33am (Eastern U.S. Time) Cocoa, FL -Report submitted by Air Mobile Joe
First of all, it is so good to be back. We’ll be resuming our Daily Editorial Blog today. Haven’t had that first cup of coffee with my sweetheart, so I’ll get back to you with the wonderful details about where we have been and what blessings have befallen us. God Bless!
Ahhh, something about that first cup of coffee. Today, I’ll begin telling you about a remarkable story of struggle and grace. This story begins with an emergency trip that the Hurston family made to Massachusetts to visit with Cindy’s Mom, who was quite ill, in early June of 2009. We were returning to Florida when we received the phone call. Our home had been completely flooded by a water leak.
When we walked into our home we had no idea of the depth of the destruction. That would unfold in the days ahead. Our insurance had just been changed to a “Hazard Only” policy and we had been shopping a new policy when the $.39 PVC connector had let loose and released a flood of woe.
We immediately began the process of getting our home back into order. Then the delays began. I will not bore you with the details, but suffice it to say, our home did not just come back to together. As a matter of fact, things went from bad to worse. We had no provision to pay additional rent while all of this was being sorted out. We did have an old motorhome that served us well as a temporary refuge. Life went on and so did the struggle to get enough money from our insurance to put our home back together.
What items we were able to salvage, i.e. clothes and furniture went into storage. Days led to weeks then to months. We mentioned our plight to our friends and valiant efforts were made to work with what funds we had, but the deeper we dug into our home the more damage we found. We finally reached a point where we were just “stuck”.
Then January 12, 2010 came and a desperate phone call came from Haiti at 4:53 pm. It was from Barbara (Rambo in the Blue Dress). She was under a table with debris falling on her. The earthquake had just occurred and she lunged under the table to safety and dialed in my number. When she spoke to me I could hear items crashing and people screaming. I promised to get to Haiti ASAP.
Our Lord heard our prayer by the next morning, we were winging to Haiti in a friend’s borrowed airplane. I will never forget that day. It was my birthday and the images, sounds, smells will ever be with me. When I think of that day…. I cry.
At about 12:03am, January 13, 2010 I wrote my first Haiti Earthquake blog. By our Lord’s grace and many miracles, I have been able to blog every day until January 7, 2011 when the Hurston Family took a much needed vacation and entered into a whole new arena of Grace and Blessing!
Many of you reading this little blog today have wandered down this winding road of miracles, heart-ache, suffering, grace and a lot of clean water to desperate people delivered by the Love and grace of Jesus to many people. You have shared so many prayer requests and you have given so many times to keep our little mission going forward.
During this whole year, our struggles with our home paled in comparison to all we had seen and had been doing in Haiti. We did, after all, have shelter, running water, food. Yes, it was quite primitive by U.S. standards and our losses compounded and we were still “stuck” regarding our home and the insurance. We could not move forward. In light of the terrible destruction and the on-going tragedy in Haiti we simply could not ask our volunteers to come and help us. We needed all the help directed to Haiti.
Someone dear to us had suggested that we write the Extreme Make-Over Home Edition folks and tell them our situation. Cindy sat down and wrote all that had happened to us. We prayed and asked our Lord for a miracle.
On January 14, 2011. We stood in front of where our old, broken home and had been and a large, jubilant crowd yelled behind us…”MOVE THAT BUS”!! As the famous bus rolled The Hurston Family staggered in indescribable joy and overwhelming thanksgiving and saw our brand new home. Oh, there is so much more that I could say. By the way, Ty Pennington and the entire design team are wonderful!
We slept in this incredible gift of a home, built with such love and care, last night. I’ll be posting some photos of the outside. Can’t give any details of the inside until the show airs on February 13, 2011. Be sure to watch it and tell all of your friends about it. It is a story of AMAZING GRACE!
In future blogs, I’ll fill in a few more details of how we have gotten here. It’s so good be back on-line and sharing my heart with you. It’s time to get to church this morning. We’ll be at our beloved hospital this afternoon as Chaplains to the young folks. God Bless and THANK YOU for standing with us.
Air Mobile Joe
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