JoyUnspeakable

I have to be honest with you all – this trip has had quite a few disappointments. I already told you about how the previous volunteers did a sloppy job on the house, and we spent a lot of time redoing and repairing their work. But worse than that was that the group responsible for assigning us the house didn’t know how bad it was, nor did they seem to care. They basically dropped us off and said “wow, this is all messed up.” We had to go to Home Depot and buy our own materials and some tools. It was very disappointing.
We also are having problems at the church we are living at. When we first arrived, there was one group there, and they were staying in two small rooms with bunks. We went into the very large room with many bunks. Another very large group arrived a little after us. So big, they couldn’t all fit in the main room with our group of nine also being in there (so some of them needed to use cots last night). Knowing those in the two “private” rooms were leaving today, we called “dibs” on those rooms. But when we got back from work today, there were people moving in to the rooms. Fortunately, we were able to kick them out, but not without some attitude.
And finally, the very large group has taken over the kitchen area. Fortunately, there are several kitchens in this very large church. But the people in charge keep changing their mind about what kitchen we are allowed to use, and telling us that we need to be out of one kitchen and go into another at different times during the week. It is all very complicated and frustrating.
I’m wondering if the organization we are using for this trip has gotten sloppy and is starting to take for granted the volunteers that are coming to help restore their city.
On a positive note, dinner was excellent. Karin had made a bunch of food and brought it along. Tonight, we ate baked ziti, meatballs, and salad. There was a huge loaf of bread, so I turned half into garlic bread. And there were some baked goods for dessert. Everything tasted great. It was a nice filling meal after a long day.

When we got back from the dump, Russ was at the house working on the siding with Joel and Buck. Thank God Russ showed up. He was a huge help, and from what I know, he should be stopping back again this week to help out some more. He shared some stories about the hurricane, about the relief efforts, about the Extreme Home Makeover, and more. Here is a pic I took of Russ.

Literally. Curt, Vi, Sarah, Karen and I just took a load of wreckage to the dump from the house we are working on. It was just under a ton of stuff, and cost us $18 to drop it off.

This is the homeowner, Lois. She is 76 years old. She came by to thank us for helping work on the house.

This is the first house we have to work on. Looks like the people who were helping out before us didn’t really know what they were doing. We wasted a bunch of time redoing a bunch of stuff they had done outside. So far, I put up some siding, and others did some mudding and sanding. A local driving by saw me sizing up a piece of siding and he decided to stop and give us some advice. His name was Russ, and he does siding for a living. It was great that he stopped and gave us some tech advice. He was wearing a Confederate Border Patrol hat that said “Keeping the Yankees Out Since 1867.” Anyway, Russ was very nice, and he even let us borrow one of his ladders and a plank. And he offered to help later in the week. How cool.

After an okay night’s rest, and a nice breakfast of pancakes and sausage, we are now at the Spring River Baptist Association, where they are going to assign us our first assignment. While at the home office, we picked up these cool shirts.

Tonight we were invited to join Pastor Joe and his small group for dinner and bible study. We had the most amazing pot luck feast. Pasta and meatballs, ribs, mashed potatoes and gravy, pizza, some kind of rice, baked beans, lasagna, and more. There was even this giant fillet of spoon fish, which was delicious. Plus strawberry breads, coca-cola cake, and other desserts. What a spread!!
While there, we heard stories of the tornado, where people were when it hit, and more. There is a coffee table book you can get in the bookstore or online called 32 Minutes in May: The Joplin Tornado, which had some really amazing pictures of all of the damage. After driving around today, it’s really amazon how much work has already been done to clean this place up, but there is still plenty of restoring left to do. I’m really looking forward to seeing what is in store for us tomorrow.
Here is a picture of Pastor Joe and his wife Donna.

Pastor Pete is one of the pastors at the church we are staying. I started recording about a minute in to his amazing story. Unfortunately, we had an appointment to get to, so we needed to cut his story off. He said he will tell us the end of his story later. I hope he does! This part covers most of the event. Please watch! This is great!

Pastor Pete video

After lunch, we drove around Joplin, viewing all of the destruction. Almost all of the debris has been cleaned up, and many new houses have gone up. We even drove by the 7 new houses that were built by Extreme Makeover. There were many foundations remaining without any house on it. Lots of open areas where I am sure there used to be houses.

Here is our crew. We are at Red Hot and Blue or lunch.

From my left, going around the table:

Vi Nissly, Gifford Pierce, Brody and Buck Schmitt, Pastor Joel Schuster, Karin Pierce, Sarah and Curt Nissly.

The Nissly’s are from Dillsburg, PA. Everybody else at the table is from Marsh Creek Community Church.