Eight Days of Hope volunteers will leave Lake Charles today better than they found it. A few arrived in RVs. Most slept on cots inside the Civic Center. Each day began with prayer and ended with worship for this national faith-based organization. In between, about 900 men and women of various skill levels from 41 states helped the owners of 150 houses make repairs that have been needed since the hurricanes of 2020 and/or the flooding of May 2021.

Homeowners weren’t charged for materials or labor. Eight Days of Hope  volunteers received no compensation and paid for their own expenses to make the trip, some traveling from as far as Oregon, 2,387 miles.  What motivates such selfless service?

“Because faith without works is dead,” answered Wesley Raush from Tennessee. He was part of a crew working on a house in Lake Charles Thursday. Craig Phelds, also from Tennessee, recounted a story from three of four of the gospels about the Pharisee, a scholar of law, who tried to trip Jesus up with the question, Which commandment is the greatest? Jesus told him it was to love God with all your mind, soul and body and to love your neighbor as yourself.

“That’s what we’re doing here, loving our neighbor” he said before putting down another section of vinyl plank flooring donated by a locally-owned and family operated building materials business.

“Eight Days of Hope is a national faith-based organization that’s been in operation since Katrina,” explained Braylon Harris. Harris heads up Southwest Louisiana Responds, a disaster response coalition supported by Houston Responds. He said this is not Eight Days of Hope’s first time in Lake Charles. They immediately responded after the hurricanes and floods. The number eight symbolizes new beginnings.

Steve Tybor, Eight Days of Hope founder and CEO shares an even more “telling” number about this organization and the group serving Lake Charles. Ten different denominations are represented.

“We live in such a divided time,” Tybor said, “a time when it seems people will argue and debate the smallest differences. When it all comes down to it God is on the throne and he has called us to go, go and serve. I’ve always said, the greatest sermon is the one I saw. I want my kids to know that I didn’t just talk; I walked the walk.”

Norma Murray, a homeowner who was busy moving items out of her house on Thursday so that Eight Days of Hope volunteers could work on her floors and plumbing probably gave the best explanation of selfless service and the blessing to start 2023 in a home free of leaks and other damage. “Nobody but God,” was how she put it.