50 years ago, April 3, 1974, a tornado devastated most of our neighborhood in East Louisville. Without electricity analog clocks read 4:42 for over a week; without food or water my wealthy neighbors were desperate; without structural support homes lay in ruins; without trees our vision was expanded.
Our church, Second Presbyterian, sat on a hill that the tornado bounced around. Everyone lifted our eyes to the church on a hill for help. Major Mott of the Salvation Army arrived with generators, water, food, and caring leadership. He didn’t say, “I alone can fix this”; he didn’t try to con money out of our suffering; he didn’t denigrate anyone for who they were; he didn’t wall off suggested solutions; he didn’t complain about an inconvenience dulling his image.
He did divide us — by dividing us into teams to work as one community to help all our neighbors. Some cooked meals, some moved water tanks, some helped search for valuables, some collected bricks to recycle. Me? I climbed on remaining roofs to place protection preventing further damage. I was inspired to do what I had never done before — climb a ladder onto my first roof, then my second, then my third….. all to do something to help strangers move into transformed futures.
When mom’s friend looked up and said, “Wallis, how did you get up on that roof?” I yelled down, “I don’t really know how I got up here!” I didn’t know at 17 what I know now. I was lifted up there because of loving servant leadership in the name of Jesus who came “not to be served but to serve.”
Who inspired you to do something you’d never done before to improve lives? When have you helped neighbors you didn’t know before? Where have you found hope in devastating events?
