Thank you for your prayers!

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2005
Thank you for your prayers!
3
Thu, 09-08-2005 - 10:46am

I just wanted to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers while I volunteered in the computer lab at Camp Gruber yesterday. It was such a wonderful experience and one I am not likely to ever forget. Everyone there was so appreciative and I received lots of hugs and there were a few tears, but all in all a very gratifying day.


I don't know if you know what has happened to these poor people, but to sum it up, they were herded into buses like cattle, not told where they were going, kept on a bus for days, not fed the last day, and, finally, dropped in the night on a military base. They are totally out of their environment in the woods in Oklahoma. One elderly woman was found walking a mile from the base - she thought she was still in New Orleans.



They were to be given picture ID and told they could not get back on the base without it if they left. The neighboring towns were told to lock up their cars & weapons. There was a curfew. People wanted out, they wanted to get to places they have friends or family or at where it at least felt familiar, but there was no way out. The mess hall is too small for all of them, I doubt a hundred at a time could get in there. A young man was not told his grandmother died on the trip and was very upset and just wanted to go home. I think for one brief second, he forgot he didn't have a home to go back to.


But, even after all they have been through, they had a smile for every volunteer, a hug for us when we got them their FEMA ID numbers or found family members for them online. A tear when they found out that someone had perished in the hurricane, or shared their excitement when we set them up their very first email address and received their first email from a family member who had been searching for them. The computer lab is severely understaffed and the computers in it are so old that they cannot handle all the processing we were putting them through. The FEMA form is at least 12 pages and it seemed that you would help a person get their whole live's information on it only to have the darn computer crash on the next to the last page and have to start them all over again.


Everyone wanted to know who I was and where I worked and wanted to know if Oklahoma was a good place to live. I have a feeling we will be getting more than a few who will decide they really like it here, love the people they have met and want to stay.


Thank you all again and I just wanted to share what I had done yesterday at Camp Gruber and all the wonderful people I had met.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Thu, 09-08-2005 - 8:18pm

That's wonderful, Nicole.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 09-09-2005 - 9:39am
Your master spirit guide will have all sorts of wonderful
things to say to you when you go to the other side. It will
be noticed as it is appreciated here on earth. great karma, lady.
My friend, Jim, is doing phones on the telethon tonight.
Love, Leila
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2005
Fri, 09-09-2005 - 10:11am

Thank you, everyone! I just had to write it down and share it before I forgot some of the finer details.


I really enjoyed this experience and DH is back there today (his work is much more flexible and since he works for the Fed.Gov. he can get people to pull together and do their jobs quickly, ha!) and we will both probably go back tomorrow to get more people registered. The problem is there is no airconditioning in any of the buildings and those poor evacuees have GOT to be just sweltering! Oklahoma gets pretty darn hot in the summer months.


Thanks again everyone for reading my short little story. :-)


Blessings and light on all who are hurting,

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