Mission Trip to help clean up after Tornado

in  Castalian Springs, TN

On Feb 5, 2008 an unstable low pressure system brought about several tornado touchdowns in Tennessee. A hard hit area closest to Hermitage was Castalian Springs, TN in rural Sumner County. It was a matter of a couple days until the city Gallatin organized cleanup efforts. On Saturday, February 16 eight people from Emmanuel Lutheran Church volunteered to spend a day helping clean up. That morning, we all left home with hearts full of compassion to help and vehicles full of cleanup equipment.

The 8 of us spent a full day cleaning up the property of a sweet old lady named Nancy. Nancy was in her home when the tornado made its path through her property. Fortunately, her home was still livable. We spent the day cutting trees and brush and then piling them up for burning. It was hard work, but our energy never felt depleted because we had a great love for what we were doing to help out Nancy.

The community was more than appreciative and FEMA was on site and seemed very organized. Meals were even provided by volunteers from churches and organizations all over middle Tennessee. It was a great sight to see so many people from all over helping the small community of Castalian Springs. It was truly a blessing to see something so bad bring so much good out of the people coming together.

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