Wimberley

Some of my blog friends may not know or remember, but over the Memorial Day weekend, Wimberley, TX had a great flood. In June, our Church, Kingsland Baptist Church, sent a group of men to work helping out the flood victims. They helped by removing flood material from the homes, then removing the cabinets, and finally, dry wall and insulation. Then they disinfected the whole area. After this dried, they were set to rebuild. Our church has joined the Texas Baptist Men’s Disaster Relief so our church can go better equipped and better trained to the next disaster. Sharon and I have also joined and taken our first training. I am going to go for Chaplaincy training for Texas Baptist Men in October. 

This past weekend, Sharon and I went to Wimberley with our Santa Claus group, Lone Star Santas. As I have mentioned previously, I have dyed my beard white, grown my hair long, and with age, my middle has grown. In fact, Sharon and I have taken some classes and we both have an Assoc. degree in Santa Clauseology. I also have gotten some new letters behind my name. I was Brad Black Th.D., now I am Brad Black Th.D., RBS, IBRBS. The RBS stands for Real Bearded Santa, and IBRBS is the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas. (HO, HO, HO) Anyway, I digress; Lone Star Santas also went to Wimberley to help the flood victims by giving out toys to the children affected.   

First, I have to describe the drive in to Wimberley. Wimberley is in the hill country and is just a beautiful drive. Wimberley is in a valley, so driving in looking down, the ravine is just breathtaking. We knew about the flood, and people had told us to look at the effects as we drove in, and they were right. As we drove in, we took the back way off I 10 using several farm to market roads. Several miles away we could see big brown brush piles of logs and debris that looked like they had been bulldozed out of the way. One section of the road had been recently repaved because there were dry washes on both sides and when the water came, it washed the road away. In other dry washes, we could see tree limbs and other debris still stuck in the fences. The most telling of the damage from the flood was the bridge going into Wimberley. It had been repaired, but it was not all pretty, it was ugly and you could tell it was hastily repaired. Once on the bridge, both sides you see a quarter mile wide gorge of twisted trees, and brown mess, just a dead zone. 

We went to the local FEMA Disaster office and set up several table with toys for the children. 

The first kid that came in was the one who had the most impact on me. He was about 5 or 6; he would not ever talk with me and always stood on the other side of his mother from me. He would talk with his mom and I could hear, but he never spoke directly to me. In fact, he would not even sit with me to take a picture with all his toys from Santa.

Well, I took him to the stuffed animals and that was great, then we went to the sports toys and he found a skateboard and he was all excited about that. In fact, it took a lot of urging to get him to go to pick even one more toy, but he finally went over to the boy table and got an Iron Man mask. The final thing we got him was a candy cane and as I was walking them out and the mom opened up to me a little bit. She told me that both the house she and her son lived in and her parent’s home had been destroyed in the flood. Now, the two of them and her parents were all living in a pop-up camper on the hill on their land. You have to put this in perspective, this is Texas, the whole summer it has been hot, and we have just gone through about two weeks of 100 plus degree-days. Our upstairs AC was out a week, and we had to sleep downstairs on chairs, air mattresses and couches, but it at least it was cool. I just cannot imagine all summer in a pop up trailer. 

She also told me that they had just chain sawed all the logs and knocked down all the walls and were down to the slab; however, they had a big pile of debris that they could not burn because they were under a burn ban. Therefore, instead of being about to start rebuilding the two houses, they were going to have to get a truck and haul all of the debris away. 

She told me thank you, she was happy for the toys so he would be able play with something and not be under her feet all the time. From what I saw, he was very clingy with his mom. I do not know what he was like before the flood, but it was obvious that he was very dependent on his mom for everything. 

The other thing that I saw that hit me hard, not so much with my first little guy, but a lot of other kids, was how important it was to have stuffed animals available for the kids. I saw several kids clinging to their new stuffed toy as they walked away, just thrilled to have something to love. I love this picture because that is why we were there, to show them love, and that stuffed animal was our proof that that was happening.

I must give credit, most of these photos are not Sharon’s and mine, but were taken by my fellow Santas, and a special thanks to Santa Clem.