Ignatius Press author and family loses everything in Georgia flash floods

From Mark Shea's blog, this sad news:

And, on a more personal note, my friend Rod Bennett (author of the terrific book Four Witnesses) writes:

Just a note to any of our friends who haven't got the word: we Bennetts lost our home and practically all of its contents in Monday's flash flooding here in Georgia. Please be in prayer as we look for guidance on where to go from here and as our kids (who've never really known any other home than this one) try to pick up the pieces emotionally.

We'll be staying with my parents in Marietta for the next week or so.

I spoke to Rod this morning. He was standing in eight inches of mud on the *third* floor of his house. He is the soul of Christian courage and fidelity in all this, though his voice cracked a couple of times and nearly broke my heart. They have lost *everything*. And they had *just* sunk $30,000 dollars into a renovation ("The roof didn't leak" he said.) Thanks be to God, they have flood insurance and so should be able to find a new home. But everything they own is gone and they are, like us, basically lower middle class folk. His library he built his whole life is goo. All their kids' things. All his wife treasured. Everything. Look around your home at all the dear familiar things you take for granted. Now imagine it all taken away. Every stick of it. He is meditating on Job and saying to God, "I'm not going anywhere." But it's bitterly hard.

They will stay in their folks' summer home for the time being. But that's 150 miles away, which means his wife will have to radically scale back her work hours as a nurse--and that means way less income. Plus, the kids are traumatized and are now suddenly thrust into a strange place far from friends and familiar things.

All of which is to say "They could really use, not just your prayers, but your help."

Visit Mark's post to find out more about helping the Bennett family during this difficult time.