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.