Morning's glow fills the sky behind the silhouetted trees.

One lone faraway plane leaves its signature in contrails where orange meets the faintest winter's blue. 

You can see miles of sky from where I sit.

I'm in Kansas, in a Pittsburg Holiday Inn, on a circuitous route from Georgia to Houston via Kansas and collegiate kids.

A few years ago while #1 son celebrated his high school graduation, a huge tornado flattened nearby Joplin, Missouri. The town lost friends, family, homes and businesses - but not their hope.

With the help of a nation - with the help of thousands of individuals who do what they can when they can -Joplin is rebuilding.

Townspeople could have tried to scrabble through - refusing help and intent to "do it on their own." But they didn't.  They asked for help and help came.

A cadre of volunteers (including teams from Adventures in Missions) joined countless others to help sort through the rubble, lift, and create space so folks here can dream again. 

And there is no shortage of disaster.

Hurricane Sandy just blew through the eastern seaboard with a freezing nor'easter on its heels. Folks are still cold, weary, and wondering where their help will come from.*

Wildfires, drought, hurricane, cyclones...unemployment, loss, illness, pollution, loneliness, and despair have punctuated our year(s).

Scandal. Disappointment. The unknown.

It's easy for national catastrophes to eclipse the "garden variety" disasters that make landfall on our front steps. 

What do we do when the equivalent of a nor'easter freezes our broken assets?

Where do we go when we are left with splintered hope?

We call for help. 

And hopefully someone will remind us that the sun will fill the sky after the dark night.

That body and business may fail, but hope does not have to.

That the destruction of one thing or expectation may yield for the building of something better, stronger, and more solid. 

You can be that person who offers hope and a helping hand. You can be somebody's hero.

Adventures in Missions is leading short-term service trips to help rebuild what Sandy destroyed. Interested? Visit http://www.adventures.org/trips/mission-trips.asp?locID=100032&typeid=5.

Can't make it? Look on either side of you - what can you do today for the people you do encounter? I'd love to hear about your encounters - your thoughts and how folks have helped you to rebuild. Give them a shout out here!

Afterthought:

One of the reasons why mobile homes are so dangerous in a tornado is that they have no foundation - they are not anchored into a concrete solid foundation. The wind whips and blows and off they go, tumbling, or flying, or splintered. It is a horrible, unnecessary danger.

Most Kansans can attest that even a strong foundation will sometimes yield to a powerful wind. But a home or a life built solidly into the packed and prepared earth - has a greater chance of standing when the storms descend. It begs the question in my mind - what am I attached to and where have I founded my life? Ouch. 

I want to be a tree that yields good fruit in the right season not an unanchored tumbleweed blowing across a dry land.

And this morning as I churned inside about the circumstances that have turned this route to Houston into an uncertain vagabond wandering, this verse came gently (& firmly) to heart:

Look to the things unseen...

Travel light my friends.