We have safely arrived in Joplin. We are staying at the Wildwood Baptist Church. The basement has been converted to be a dorm, and has tons of bunk beds for us. We met up with a group of three, the Nissly’s, who are on our team. I guess at some point I should introduce the rest of our team. I’ll do that after lunch.
Remember the picture from when we left this morning? Did you see what we were all holding? They were care packages made from Marsh Creek Church Youth. Each one of us got our own individual package, including a decorated notebook for a journal, a collection of notecards with encouraging verses, and a bunch of snacks. So cool. Thanks, youth!!
We just passed the St. Louis Arch. Neat!
After breakfast, we started watching the Storm Chasers video of the EF-5 tornado in Joplin. It’s really crazy seeing the storm form and hearing the survivors tell stories of the event. This is really going to be an amazing week. if you haven’t seen the video, you can find other videos by searching for Joplin Tornado on YouTube.
We stopped for breakfast at Denny’s. I ordered the low fat veggie skillet. But Denny’s is running a peanut butter and chocolate promotion, and I couldn’t turn down the chocolate chip pancake batter hush puppies with a side of peanuts butter. People got a kick out of my order, but man those were yummy!
I think we have about 6 hours to go.
We just made it into Indiana. Pastor Joel was our first driver. He picked up the van, I’m guessing around 5:45pm. He finally gave up the wheel at 3:30am. That’s nearly a 10-hour stretch! At the gas station, he was saying how he could go longer, but he was getting uncomfortable from keeping his foot on the pedal so long.
I was able to get a little sleep, and I’m riding shotgun now. Buck has taken the wheel. After two minutes at the wheel, Buck found the cruise control. I wonder how far Joel would have gone had he known about that!
We were supposed to leave from the church at 6pm, but Pastor Joel and I didn’t get there until 6:15pm. And then Karen realized she forgot all of the food she made and froze. So we are running back to her house for that now.
I say everything happens for a reason. Maybe there is a bad accident that we will avoid because we are leaving an hour later. Who knows?
I’ll be honest. I don’t feel that comfortable about leaving the family behind right now. I pray that God keeps them safe while I am gone.
Today, I am leaving my family behind for a week and joining several friends from Marsh Creek Community Church to go do missions work in Joplin, Missouri. Last year, an EF-5 tornado destroyed the city, and there is still plenty of work to do to repair it. We leave tonight at 6PM, and will arrive tomorrow morning. We’re driving.
President Obama is speaking in Joplin next month to talk about the state of the city. I’m glad we aren’t going during that; I’m sure Joplin will be plenty crazy when the President is on site.
This will be my first missions trip, and I am looking forward to it. Unfortunately, the timing isn’t very good, as my wife recently went into the hospital for a three-week stay after a serious Multiple Sclerosis attack. She has been home for one week, but still has a long recovery to go. Fortunately, we have plenty of friends and family lined up to give Marie a hand – both with herself and with the girls.
It’s going to be a very interesting week. Thanks to all of those who donated to make this possible. I plan to blog daily, so you can all be aware of the work we are doing. We leave tonight at 6PM, I haven’t packed yet, I have errands to run, and I’m still not sure how I’m getting to the church. I better figure that out.
We are finally home. A four-hour-and-twenty minute drive took us nearly seven hours (with two stops). I’m exhausted.
This morning, I got up early and ventured off to Foxwoods. I figured since I was only 20 minutes away that I should check out the famous poker location. Unfortunately for me, the only games going were No Limit, and instead of waiting for a Limit game to start, I sat at a NL game. There is a reason why I want to stop playing NL. It’s because I suck at it. I lost a bunch of money in two hours, and I left a big loser. Oh well.
Back at the hotel, the family was about to head to the pool, so I got in my suit and joined them. The pool was very nice. (we stayed at the Hampton Inn and Suites, which was very nice).
After we checked out, we went to Mystic Pizza for lunch. I was a little worried it was going to be a tourist trap, but I thought the pizza was very good.
I liked Mystic, and I hope we get the chance to come back and check out Mystic Seaport, and the Aquarium, as well as other things to do there. Unfortunately, we just didn’t have time to check anything out.
Our drive home was long. Very long. New York was beautiful to drive by on the way out, but was a nightmare on the way home.
I’m glad to be home again. Not too excited to go straight to work tomorrow; it would have been nice to have a day at home, but that’s okay. Going to go to bed early.
This was a crazy day, indeed! This morning, we started our voyage home. The plan was to leave early and head to the Lobster Fest in Rockland, Maine, check that out for a few hours, and then head to Mystic, Connecticut for the night. For the most part, that’s what we did. Except we had a two-hour delay while I stopped in the ER in Skowhegan. About 30 minutes into my drive, I felt a sight pain on the left side of my bladder, and soon after the pain became excruciating and traveled all the way to my back on my left side. I have never felt such pain in my life before. The pain didn’t go away. I tried stopping at a rest stop and using the bathroom, but no luck. I couldn’t make the pain stop. I started getting hot, a little dizzy, my fingers in both hands started to tingle, and I needed to get to a hospital. I set the GPS, but as the pain got worse, I wasn’t sure if I would make it that far. I had to travel about 25 miles to the nearest hospital. When I realized I was about 4 miles away, I decided to tough it out, which was really hard. I think I went through 3 red lights in town to try and make it to the hospital. Anyway, they hooked me up to an IV and after an x-ray, they told me I had a kidney stone! After some meds, I started feeling better, but I knew the pain wasn’t done yet.
Here’s a funny story. We left at the same time as my parents from Jackman, except they were going to visit friends in New Hampshire. When they set their GPS, it told them to go North; we were going South. So we went out separate ways. Marie called them to tell them I was in the hospital, and it turned out that they were in the same town as us having breakfast! Their GPS didn’t take into account that in order to go the route that it planned for them that they would need their passports to go in to Canada! Oops! So, they had to turn around, and go the same was as us. They were able to meet me at the hospital and make sure I was going to be okay. (Love you Mom & Dad!)
Anyway, we finally got out of the hospital, filled my scripts, and went on my way to the Lobster Festival. It was a painful drive while I waited for the drugs to kick in, but eventually they did.
The Lobster Fest was basically a small city carnival with rides, games of chance, and plenty of food, including lobster. And they had lobster-themed activities. The only one we really got to watch was the lobster crate race. For that, they took 50 lobster crates and strung them together in the water between two piers. People took turns attempting to run across them and back as many times as they could. I believe the record is something like 4,370 or something. Most people were getting less than 20, though. It was fun to watch the people try to run across.
Unfortunately, the weather was really rainy while we were there. It did let up enough for us to enjoy the afternoon enough, though. I’m glad we got to stop.
We’re now in Mystic, Connecticut. We checked in to our hotel. I think I may have passed my kidney stone! I guess I’ll find out how I feel tomorrow. I’m not taking any chances, though; I’m taking my meds tonight! Not sure what our plans are for tomorrow. Looks like there are tons of things to do, but we don’t want to be here all day – just the morning. So, I guess we’ll see what we have time for.
It’s our last night in Jackman, Maine. I really enjoyed this trip. I’m not sure if it’s because it was Maine, or because most of my family was here on vacation with us. Probably more the latter, but Maine was beautiful, and I would love to come back.
Today, my Dad and I went on three small hikes to waterfalls. Unfortunately, the first one wasn’t marked very well. We were supposed to hike a mile into the woods. While we could hear the falls, with the trail not marked at all, we weren’t comfortable with being able to find the car after finding the falls, so we turned back.
The other two falls were very pretty. Dad and I took lots of pictures. I hope they come out nice.
The rest of the day was spent packing and loading up the car, with a small swim in the middle and a trip for ice cream at the end.
We are getting up early to start our trip tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow – we are going to stop at the Maine Lobster Festival! I can’t wait!