Saturday

Saturday morning dawned way TOO early this past weekend.  Amy, Greg, and I got up before the sun did and left for Hattiesburg to do training for the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Team.  The training started at 8, we left at 6 so that we had plenty of time.  The first hour was an orientation to how the team developed and the different disasters they responded too.  They were at Ground Zero, Hurricane Katrina, Sandy Hook, and others.  Plus all the tornado disasters that have plagued the South for decades.

We did the Meal Prep training.  And for real on the job training ~ the team cooked lunch for all the folks training in different areas ~ about 150 people.  In the emergency scenarios, you could be serving 10,000 ~ 20,000 meals a day ~ gulp!  The Big Rig tractor trailer truck has all the equipment.  And you don't actually "cook"...for a big disaster like the 9/11 or Katrina ~ its more of heating canned food and the Red Cross picks it up and delivers it to the feeding areas.  They also supply all the food.

If we were on a team to serve 100-200 meals to volunteers, clergy, law enforcement, etc. ~ we would be cooking "real" food. 

It was interesting and the assembly was packed.  There were probably 150 folks getting trained in different areas for emergency response.  There is a chainsaw/blue tarp team.  Sounds weird, but if you had a tree on your house, you would want them to come by and take care of you!

We are going to look into more training through different agencies.

(Will opted out of training to go play paintball with James, and a bunch of guys from church ~ they had lots of fun!)

Afterwards we cruised to the coast to look for a car ~ didn't find one!  But, we did get a yummy shrimp meal and took a little walk on the beach!