Day 5-Final Day was a great day!

As we awoke this morning on our last day, we made it a mission to love on both people affected by the tornado, with other missionaries, and most important, we wanted to break off from our little group at lunch time and go sit with others and build relationships!  And it was awesome!  Personally I sat with a group from Arkansas and we shared about Jesus, we traded stereo types we had of each other (they thought the girls were hairy legged, tree hugging vegetarians!).  Pretty funny stuff.  At the same table, I sat with a mother of twins, Roxy, that was staying with a friend at the time when the tornado hit, she jumped on her twins, covered them both and the entire house around her disappeared.  The only marks she had on her other than a few scratches, was a bruise the size of a finger print on one of her arms from where one of her girls was holding on so tight!

                                   

As for our work for the day, Ashton and Cindy again rocked the kitchen and produced more meals today than any other day so far, well over 500 meals!  And at the end of the day Lisa, the kitchen manager was in tears as our wonderful women were leaving.  They made such an impression and worked so hard and did so well that they will be missed.  I know firsthand that without Ashton and Cindy, there would have been lots of hungry workers and tornado victims.  Bob, Harris and Dave were kings of the tents. Bob and Harris built a ply wood floor in the furniture tent, keeping patrons safe and keeping things organized.  The three of them also brought in supplies from all over and kept the shelves stocked.  But best of all, they were able to take time and pray with a number of victims, missionaries and also staff at the Joplin Family Worship Center.  It was amazing!  As for Chelsea, Cassie and myself, we had a day of transition as we helped train other people in filling orders, keeping everything stocked and most of all, loving on victims, showing them compassion no matter what kind of mood they were in and praying with them.  Today we were all blessed with wonderful yet heart breaking stories and many tearful hugs.

There was actually a story that we had heard where a 7 year old girl was with her mom, tornado ripped the roof off their house and before the mother could react, the tornado sucked the little girl up!  Having lost her little girl among many of her possessions, this mother was wrecked!  However, the next day a miracle happened and this mother received a phone call that they have found her little girl alive!!!  FIVE MILES away from her house, and she didn't have a scratch on her!  And when asked how she got there, she said "Angels flew me here". It was evident Angels were in abundance the day of the tornado.  Well today Chelsea and Cassie met this little girl and her mother while serving food.  This little girl was shy and humble and was truly saved by Angels, what an amazing story!!

As we were wrapping up our final day, I was again very proud of our team.  I heard from many of the full time staff there how sad they were that we were going and there was actually a few of them that broke down in tears.  And I guess to understand the sincerity of it all, there are literally hundreds of volunteers coming though this place on a daily basis, and these people are seeing so many faces that I am surprised they remember names.  In fact we all have to write our names on duct tape and slap them on our chests just so we are not called "Hey you!"

So again, I know I have said it many times before, but I am SUPER proud of this team and everything that was accomplished.  We did everything I was hoping and so much more.  We shared Jesus with victims, we connected with them, we loved them, we prayed, cried and we even laughed with them.  Just as important, we established relationships and strong bonds.  We all have new Facebook friends and if God feels another trip down here is needed, we will feel truly blessed! 

This is one of about 10 tents holding supplies for the tornado victims

 Picture of part of the Worship Center

 Area where we served Meals on Wheels, and this place had 13 senior citizens who perished in a low income senior housing complex.

Day 4-Another awesome day with more heartbreaking stories

Day 4 of our mission was another day of hard work, creating new relationships, and stronger bonds.  Again today we stayed around the distribution center and worked out tails off!  Ashton and Cindy continued to work their magic in the kitchen as they served about 120 lunches, 150 meals on wheels as well as 60+ dinners.  All week the kitchen has been short handed and as soon as the manager see's our team, her face reads both excitement and relief because the trust and continuity has been bonded.  Today, Chelsea and Cassie spent most of the day in what we have been calling the "commissary" and people would bring a list of all their food needs and they would go around the store and fill big shopping carts with different foods, like cereal, ravioli's, canned veggies, soups, juices, detergent, milk, candy and chips.  The most important part was they got to meet these people in need, they loved on them, they prayed with them and they laughed with them.  One heart breaking story we witnessed was when a young girl, roughly 25 years old, approached Cassie and asked her if she was a mom?  Cassie with a  "yes" and this young lady went on and told Cassie that she was just married a couple weeks ago and 6 weeks ago her sister was killed in the tornado and she is now the mother of her sisters 6 year old son.  She went on the tell Cassie that he is not speaking and she has no idea what a 6 year old would eat!  And she was so humble with everything, she felt bad about asking for help and almost felt ashamed.  When we witnessed this humility, our hearts broke and we had to love on her.  It was truly an amazing story.  Finally, not only did our team work a full day at the Worship Center, they actually stayed around an extra 4 hours helping out in the commissary and kitchen by restocking and feeding the new Meals on Wheels team.

As for the guys, again we really got the feeling that we were an essential part of the entire team at Joplin Family Worship Center.  All the main leaders seem to grab people from our team to either help unload trucks, organize stock, load cars and of course be mechanics!  Yes today, the two goofy non-mechanically inclined duo on our team tried to play diesel mechanic!  One of the engines that ran the cooling system in the refrigerator trailers went out and Dave and I attempted to get it working.  After about 45 minutes we finally got it started, rigged a belt and only had one near death experience, which happened when Dave had is head stuck in the engine and I started playing with "blinky" lights and switches and all of the sudden the engine fired off and scared the pants off both Dave and I!  But luckily God was looking over us and was protecting us.  As the day continued, there was a great need in the commissary and all 6 of us that were not in the kitchen was either stocking the store, filling orders, or a little of both.

Initially we were planning on doing the "Meals on Wheels" again, but there was another team of 15 and we really felt that we needed to step back and let others experience the same blessings that we had.  However, we were blessed in another way as one of the people we fed the last two days was an older man who was working long days and just did not have the energy or time to side his house.  So a few of us stopped by about 7:00PM tonight and finished siding one side of his house.  He had all kinds of different vinyl siding, but we had to make due and that we did!  Harris was the master cutter, Bobby was the master installer and I held a coffee cup, pointed, and barked out orders! We finally finished up about 9:30 and had strict orders that if we did not stop and hit the ice cream shop that there could possibly be a mutiny!  So we finished our day with some ice cream and having an entire church all to ourselves, capped the night with a great worship session!

As I close out for the night, the one thing I want to share with everyone out there is how proud I am of our team.  Each member of the team has become a leader in their own right.  They are always in demand and people are always fighting to have them on their teams!  They all have represented not only our churches in an awesome way, but also the body of Christ!  We have one more day of work left, please pray for another day of strength, out reaching and sharing the love with those that have been affected by this tragedy.

 True power of the tornado!  Levels homes, destroys lives and flips cars.

 The Church is gone but the Cross still stands!

 New friends :)

Joplin High School, now named HOPE High School.

Day 3 - Little Taste of the Joplin Sun!

On day three of our journey, the road took us to a 120 acre farm that was roughly 5 miles from the disaster site.  This field is primarily used for hay and also cattle grazing.  On arrival, the field really didn't look all that bad and we really didn't understand what the need was, but that quickly changed!  In Missouri, they only get one hay cut a year (not really sure what it's like elsewhere, but sounded like a significant fact) and there was no way they could cut the hay with all this debris in the fields.  And once we started walking, we realized there was a TON of debris!  You wouldn't imagine the things we found!  The craziest things we found were three little turtles (alive) just chilling in this wheat field, miles from any water source, crazy.  We also found a ton of baseball cards, football cards, photographs, checks, $10 bill, and probably enough housing material to get a good start on a new (well pieced together) house!  There was actually chunks of sheet rock from someones bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, or whatever many miles away!  It was truly crazy how strong these tornado's are.  We saw a newer car placed in the middle of the soccer field at the high school, we found a car that was lying on it's top and an entire house gone except the front door and on one occasion a porch.

Got a little side tracked there,  but for the second half of the day 1/2 of the team was desperately needed back at the distribution center as they were running behind of getting meals prepared and loading and unloading semi's full of goods coming from all over.  Mean while, Chelsea, Cassie and I stayed out in the field and continued picking up debris.  At one point Chelsea uncovered a Copperhead snake, which got the blood flowing and the excitement up!  But after a few failed strike attempts at the farm hand Trae, the snake retreated and no one was hurt.  We stuck it out in the field until about 3:45 and by that time the three of us were running low on energy and getting headaches, possibly early stages of heat exhaustion (after all it was 95 today and we were in the middle of a wheat field!).  By the time we got back to the Joplin Family Worship Center, Cindy and Ashton were kicking butt in the kitchen helping prepare another 400+ meals along with getting things ready for meals on wheels.  Bob, Dave and Harris were getting pulled from one job to another as it seemed our team was in great demand, whether it was filling grocery carts for people in need, unloading semi's or moving freight.  A little Samoan gall named Kiki was running them into the ground!

After dinner was served and things were under control in the kitchen, we headed out for our second night of Meals on Wheels, and this time we were joined by a family of 5 from Colorado.  Today we split up into two teams and were able to hit just as many houses in about half the time.  Again we heard some amazing stories and some heart breaking stories.  We ran across some familiar faces, and they felt even more blessed today seeing friendly faces someone to talk too.  We got to pray for people, we were able to bless a couple with diapers for the 18 month old, because the parents lost their jobs, tornado destroyed the car and they had few options on picking up supplies.  We also ran into a older man who was trying to side his house and a few of us are heading to his house after work tomorrow to help him anyway we can.  In fact, the man who lost his job and we had to get diapers for, well he is actually a sider by trade so we hired him to come over, bring all his tools and help us out.  We feel it was a win-win situation and these crazy little coincidences only happen because God has a master plan, and by following your heart and his guidance, things will workout.

It was another busy, long, hot day in Joplin, worked for another 12+ hours, but the team rocked again today!

 This is an 80 acre x 80 acre hay farm that we cleaned.  Felt like we were trying empty the ocean using a shovel!

 Watch out for those Tiggers and Chicks...I mean chiggers and ticks :)

 Meals on Wheels with a team from Colorado

Burger King with only Play Land left standing!

Day 2 What God wants, not what we want

Today we were truly blessed.  When we first arrived at the Joplin Family Christian Center, the leaders picked out a roof removal project and a drywall removal project.  The team was extremely excited to get out in the field and help.  Unfortunately when the phone call was made to the home owners, there was no answer and we were not permitted to enter the worksite.  With this news, spirits were down and what “we” wanted to do, wasn’t what God had intended.  The ladies were all sent to the kitchen and truly blessed everyone.  Our four ladies (Chelsea, Cassie, Ashton and Cindy) along with two others cooked and prepared 400 meals today!  The four men (Dave, Bob, Harris and myself) worked all over the distribution center doing a number of tasks, including moving supplies, loading vehicles with food, clothing and other household goods, and also working in the store room filling food orders (basically going shopping for people, gathering soups, cereal, juice, and many other items).  While working with people in need we really got a chance to connect with them, love on them and hear many heart breaking stories.  The true blessing came after dinner when we were given the opportunity to do “Meals on Wheels”.  The ladies prepared 150 meals, loaded them in the back of three cars and drove up and down the streets of the most damaged areas of Joplin, knocked on doors and asked if we could feed them.  We had amazing results, everyone was very grateful and everyone was truly blessed with God’s presence.  Again, we heard amazing stories after amazing stories.  We literally were given the opportunity to walk the most devastated streets of Joplin for 4 hours, feeding people, loving on people and even laughing with people.  Very proud of our team today, we worked from 8:00AM until after 9:00PM, a long day but they were awesome!!

Joplin Day 1-Travel Day

Today Pastor Andy gathered the troops at 2:00AM along with Mark Tesch and hauled us down to the airport for our 5:15 flight.  We were blessed with a safe and peaceful flight.  We arrived into Kansas City to 95 degree weather, around 35-40 degrees warmer than Oak Harbor!  The heat definitely hit us all pretty hard as the jeans and sweatshirts were stripped off!  Once we got our rental car, we stopped in at Arthur Bryant's BBQ and all 8 of us had some amazing Kansas City BBQ for only $44!  From there it took another 2.5 hours to get to Carthage, MO which is fifteen minutes from Joplin.  Upon arrival, we met with CitiIMPACT leaders and were introduced to the staff at First Christian Church of Carthage.  They are doing some amazing things for the city of Joplin as well as voulanteers from all around.  As well as us, a team of 40 people from Northern Missouri arrived and we are all staying in about a 75' x 75' loft, organized chaos at it's best!  But it's now 10:00PM, lights are out and its pretty quiet.  Some interesting facts about the tornado, to date there is a confirmed 158 deaths, 8000 homes dmaged or destroyed, 500 business damaged or destroyed, the devestation of the tornado is roughly 21 miles long and at some points got to be 1 mile wide.  Finally if you piled up all the estimated rubble from the storm, it would be 2 times the amount from the 9/11 attack on the twin towers!  Tomorrow, we are headed bright and early and will find out jobs, it will either be wokring in a distribution center or celaning rubble.  Thanks for reading, keep us in your prayers as many of you are in ours.

Only a few days away until we leave

I talked with Toni Smith from CitiIMPACT.org today and we got a lot of details hammered out.  We will be staying in Carthage, MO at the 1st Christian Church.  Currently we do not have a specific job, but it will be either cooking food for people in tent city, working in the distribution center or removing debris and remodeling as needed.  If we are working in the field, they will require us to wear pants and work boots and today the temperature was 99 degrees, roughly 30 degrees warmer than it is in Oak Harbor!  Definitely going to be a weather shock for the team, especially after you add in the humidity!