Dory in Real Life....

Today was a day of intrigue. In Houston, we have been blessed to have the country respond to the needs of our neighbors. It is said that we have electric company workers from 31 states and Canada. Today, we worked with the Red Cross. They have the ability to serve 100,000 meals a day once they get up to full capacity. Michelle and I got to go follow one of the ERVs (Emergency Response Vehicle -- an ambulance that is a rolling food pantry) to help. They are a well-oiled machine. We followed them to the first apartment complex. Upon arrival, Adam (my boss) introduced himself and said that we were there with our church to help them. They have been trained to do their job and do it well and we just wanted to help, so we went door-to-door to tell people they were serving lunch in case they hadn't heard the bull horn. Once they had served around 15o meals, they loaded up and moved to the next location.

We soon became puzzled by the team's response to us. We followed them for a while, and they eventually pulled into a parking lot. We pulled in behind them. They looked at us curiously. We asked them the address they were looking for (because they seemed lost) and talked to them for a few minutes. Then they said they thought we were following them and wanted food. (Note to self, when driving a Red Cross relief van don't stop for very long because people will begin to swamp you.) So, after clearing things up, we continued to follow them to the next site. We went around door-to-door again to help gather people to feed. At this site they fed around 650. While the line began to decrease, we talked with the crew and helped pass out water, break down boxes, and just shoot the breeze. While we were talking, one of the team members suddenly looked at us and said, "Oh, you are the people that have been following us in the silver car, aren't you?" At that point, we realized Dory (from the movie, "Finding Nemo") really does exist. For those of you who don't know who Dory is, she is a fish who has a problem with short-term memory loss. She continually forgets characters she just met (and sometimes thinks they are stalking her). We had introduced ourselves two times previously, worked one site with them and talked to them in the parking lot, and had been talking to them at this site. We had a good laugh with our experience with them, and we extremely appreciate their hard work and sacrifice to feed our neighbors -- whether they remember us or not.