Missiles, Milton, and my Moto G

Clumsy people shouldn’t carry naked phones.

When my Moto G Stylus declared itself No Longer Functional a while back, I found myself in possession of a brand spankin’ new phone (the Moto G Stylus 5G 2024!) with a lovely, uber-touchable back that made me think maybe I’d try going phone-commando. Then I nearly dropped it and started surfing for cases.

Usually I’m a basic-black kind of girl when it comes to phone attire. But this time, I decided to jazz up my life a little. After a properly obsessive online search, I found and fell in love with a case on Etsy, the digital marketplace that unites creative, make-cool-things types with people who want to own handcrafted goods.

It’s a lovely case, at least according to the picture. I haven’t seen the real deal yet, despite ordering it, gosh, maybe three, four weeks ago? The seller and I messaged back and forth for a while as he took pains to get my personalized order just the way I wanted it. His name is Georgiy Ivanenko. He lives in Cherkasy, Ukraine, a river city of about 300,000 people, home to government buildings, museums, parks, cultural treasures, and the occasional Russian missile explosion. The residents go to work and cook dinner and make cell phone cases in between air raid sirens. Meanwhile, they carve out energy and emotional space to care for the 80,000 displaced people who have moved into the region not knowing if they’ll ever return home.

In his last message to me, Georgiy wrote, “Have a good life and stay healthy!”

He apologized that the phone case might take some time to reach me. With Ukraine airports destroyed by Russia, packages first have to travel by truck or train to Poland before being flown to a Florida warehouse for distribution in North America. The package should reach Florida around October 10, he said.

October 10…right about the time another package was scheduled to arrive in Florida, one in the form of a Category 5 hurricane. 

The state still reeled from Hurricane Helene, the monster that swept across the southeast U.S. two weeks earlier, killing more than 200 people, eviscerating whole communities and devastating lives. Now Milton was on his way, bigger and badder than any storm in recent memory, ready to take down anyone Helene left standing.

The day after news reports blared news of Milton’s aftermath ― three million without power, more than a dozen dead, people clinging to debris in the water ― I got a ping on my phone. My package had arrived at a Florida shipping facility, and it was now on its way north to my Michigan home, the cheery notification said.

People lost everything. And somehow, someone still managed to send me my phone case.

I don’t even know what to do with that.

I can tell you one thing, though. When the case arrives, I’m going to take a minute to just hold it and think about the places it’s been. The hands that have touched it. The lives through which it has passed and the people eking out an existence in the most trying of circumstances…and not giving up.

The design I chose for the case, back before I messaged Georgiy, before the hurricanes started swirling toward our coasts, is a spray of ivy engraved on wood. After a summer watching never-say-die vines creeping up the side of my house, ivy speaks to me of resilience. Tenacity. Fortitude.

Amid the vines on the case, I requested another personalization, a reference to a Bible verse that’s been on my heart lately: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

I grow weary as I look at the world around me. There’s so much hurt. So much injustice. So much meanness and pettiness and pride, flooding everywhere, destroying lives. I want it all to just go away and let me enjoy my new phone case without having to worry about things that should be better and my place in fixing them.

When things get tough, you just keep going. You hunker in the bomb shelter and then go back to making a casserole for your neighbors. You dig through the muck and bring water to the people up the road. You just…keep going.

You keep going, making one difference for one person in one moment. Speaking up for what’s right. Seeking the other side of the story. Seeing what you don’t want to see, because someone has to see it. Taking one step.

It's OK to be weary. But keep going.

Because someone needs you.

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I can’t begin to imagine the trauma of having your life wiped away in the space of a day. If you feel compelled to donate your time or resources to help with hurricane relief efforts, please do. I’m sure many organizations across the nation would welcome and make good use your gift. If you don’t want to research to find a legitimate donation site, you can safely donate via LCMS Disaster Response, operated by my church body.