He looked at me from across his desk and said, “When you talk with the people, tell them Bubba sent ya.”
Here is the back story:
When I leave the city of Columbus to work in a natural disaster, I usually only have a general idea of where I am going. This time, I was on my way to southern Alabama where several tornadoes had a few days earlier touched down in several places across the state.
I arrived in Phenix City, Alabama late in the afternoon. After asking several locals where the hardest hit area was located, I was told it was in a town 7 miles away that had about 6,000 residents. The name of town is Smiths Station. Its right there close to the Georgia and Florida state lines.
I went ahead and got a room there in Phenix City because I figured Smiths Station had suffered such destruction I would not be able to live there even temporarily.
After securing a room, I drove to the town of Smiths Station and saw a great amount of damage brought about by one of the tornadoes. One in particular had come down on one side of town, went back up, and came back down on the other side with the center suffering very little damage.
My heart always breaks when I enter an area like this that has been hit by a natural disaster; be it a flood, tornado or derecho. Since losing almost everything in the Columbus flood of 2008, I have great empathy for people who have been affected because I’ve been there.
As I drove around the little town, I witnessed massive destruction.
Samaritan’s Purse and The Red Cross were already on the ground and FEMA was on its way.
The next morning I caught up with some of the town officials and let them know I was in the area and how could I best serve them. They wanted me to meet with the mayor so arrangements were made for this to happen.
When I spoke with him he told me they appreciated my coming to help. Then, he told me what he wanted me to do.
He asked if I would, first, drive throughout the affected area. If I saw anyone outside in their yard, he wanted me to pull over, go up and talk with them to see how they are doing. He just wanted me to spend some time assessing the emotional needs of the people.
The last thing he said to me before I left his office that day was, “Tell them that Bubba sent ya!” Apparently, the townspeople knew him by his high school football nickname and they loved him — and he loved them. He was also a pastor.
So I did as “Bubba” had asked of me and the first words out of my mouth when approaching someone was, “Hello, my name is Nita Evans, I am a chaplain from Columbus, Indiana, and Bubba has sent me to check on you.”
When the people heard me say the words, “Bubba has sent me to check on you” their faces relaxed and they smiled.
After a couple of days of doing assessments, I met with the mayor, again, and he gave me a list of people who had been reported as struggling emotionally. He then asked if I would go and spend some time with each of them. So, this is what I did.
When meeting someone, I always first said that Bubba had personally sent me to them.
Once I said this, they spoke freely about what they were experiencing.
I will never forget one of my visits in particular.
I drove to the edge of town almost into the countryside. I came upon a red brick house with three empty lots next to it. I visited with the elderly woman inside for a good while.
While there, she told me before the tornado came, there were three mobile homes on the now empty lots next to hers and they were owned by her family members. She related that they all had escaped to her house.
The one next door was owned by her son-in-law and he had only made it by a handful of seconds. When he stepped through her door’s threshold, he turned his head and saw his complete mobile home fly through the air.
Then, the woman told me all she needed was a little bit of snuff and a little bit of food and she’d be just fine. A red flag went up inside of my head for I knew she was in need of long term counseling to help her with the trauma the tornado had caused.
As I listened and though she was in great emotional pain, she was thankful and knew that God had protected her whole family.
Before I left her home, she told me she appreciated my coming to visit with her. After I prayed she told me to tell Bubba that she was going to be fine.
Some days later I returned back home to Columbus. All the way along, I knew it wasn’t Bubba who sent me. As I listened, asked questions and prayed with many people in Smiths Station, Alabama, I knew it was really God who had sent me!
A prayer I often pray for myself is, Isaiah 6:8 which reads, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Nita Evans of Columbus is host of “The Chat” Saturdays on WYGS Radio, owner of Confidential Christian Counseling, a national conference speaker, and Columbus Police Department chaplain. She can be reached at her website at specialspeaker.com. Send comments to [email protected].
