David Bussau: Facing the World Head-On by Janet Benge & Geoff Benge

David Bussau: Facing the World Head-On by Janet Benge & Geoff Benge

Author:Janet Benge & Geoff Benge [Benge, Janet & Benge, Geoff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Religious, Christian
ISBN: 9781576584156
Google: vSJGJAAACAAJ
Amazon: 1576584151
Barnesnoble: 1576584151
Publisher: YWAM Publishing
Published: 2008-01-01T11:46:03+00:00


Chapter 9

Darwin

As the airplane circled the city and made its approach to land, David peered out the window, dumbstruck at the devastation Cyclone Tracy had wrought on Darwin. The city was damaged far worse than he could have imagined, worse than the images of the disaster on television had revealed. Barely a house was left standing in the city’s northern suburbs, and debris was scattered in all directions.

As he stepped off the plane at Darwin’s battered airport, David felt like he was stepping into a sauna. It was the wet season and the hot season in Darwin, and the resulting humidity was so thick and heavy it clung to his skin. By the time he had walked across the tarmac, beads of sweat were running down David’s face and back.

David and his team stayed at a nearby hostel run by the Uniting Church, which had miraculously survived the ravages of the cyclone fairly unscathed. After the team had made it to the hostel with their duffel bags and toolboxes, David sprang into action. He set out to survey the damage and come up with a plan to deploy the members of his team in the most effective way. He had seen the aftermath of the cyclone on television and from the air as they flew in, but now he was viewing it at close quarters. Most of the houses in Darwin were built atop steel or concrete pilings, with stairs leading up to the living area and the laundry situated under the house. Lots of steel and concrete pilings were sticking up everywhere, but few houses were left intact on top of them. David walked down street after street where the combined effects of Cyclone Tracy’s wind and flying debris had leveled everything. Cars, appliances, furniture, and personal belongings were strewn everywhere among the rubble. By the time David arrived in Darwin, nearly thirty thousand of the city’s forty-eight thousand inhabitants had been evacuated or had fled the place, and those who had stayed huddled for shelter under what remained of their homes.

Before long David had a plan, and soon the members of the team were spread out around Darwin, putting their carpentry skills to work. They focused much of their efforts on houses that had been damaged but not destroyed by the cyclone. Some of these homes needed their roofs repaired or holes in the walls patched, while others needed bathrooms and kitchens put back into functioning order. So much work needed to be done across Darwin that the efforts of twenty men seemed insignificant, but they were not insignificant to those the men helped. With tears in their eyes, grown men would thank the workers for their efforts in giving them back a place to live. As David made it back to the hostel each evening dirty and sweaty, the thought of those thank-yous spurred him on to try to help even more people the next day.

Finally, after three weeks in Darwin, it was time for the team to head back to Sydney.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.