From Flood Crises to Mud Crises

Walking down the road to my friend's house I saw this. It made me cry!

The aftermath of the floods is unbelievable. The landscape in places unimaginably different to normal. 

Driving through Ipswich, the trees in the foreground are covered in mud, everything looks dead, but really just covered in mud. The background trees are mud-free/green at the top. The smell is disgusting - no words to describe it!

Driving along the road, you see the all the contents of houses in piles of stenching rubbish.

 

Rubbish is being manged by the army in this road.

Cleaning from tip to toe

 

Gutted in more ways than one.

The other side of the road, high enough to not reach the neighbours house.

 

Down the road. Some places were so busy on Saturday that there was no place to park.

 

Going home to an unaffected area after helping - exhausted! Or were they the pizza delivery angles?

At home our children play at the park. There are extra children, no doubt spending time with unaffected family as parents clean up. It is almost surreal that life here is so normal, you are tempted to feel guilty for carrying on as usual.

The friends worst effected have lost almost everything. The water came above the ceiling. In all this our friends are still laughing. When I ask what should I do with this or that, the answer is, " I don't care, you chose. It is only stuff" They are trusting God to provide for them, and reaching out to help others as they use their church buildings for others in need. What an amazing testimony of being able to cope though the tears with God's help in such an insurmountable crises.

This is my saddest picture of all...looking from their front door up to the top of the garden, again you can see the tops of the trees are clean of mud. Their front entrance under the arch is blocked by rubbish. 

 Roads are still blocked as water slowly subsides. In the photo below we can usually drive from the foreground up to where the cars are on the hill. Gardens in this semi rural area are littered with stenching shipping containers. Stories of heroism and bravery and neighbourly kindness unfold. 

None of us can ever be the same again. May we all draw closer to each other and to God in this.