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.