Joplin clean up

As the scenes from tornado ravaged Joplin started appearing on tv just shortly after the storm hit on May 22nd, my immediate thoughts went to what we could do to help. I knew we would donate money, I knew we could donate from our stockpile, but it just didn't feel like enough. After some prayer and discussion, we decided to also volunteer our time.

E's parents come over Sunday evening to stay with the kids. We got up shortly after 4am on Memorial Day and headed out around 5am. The drive really wasn't that bad. I don't mind driving in the early morning as long as I've got my cup of coffee. We got into Joplin sometime after 8am.

We didn't take a lot of pictures. I felt kind of numb the entire time. It was the most surreal thing I have ever experienced. When we first got into town, I burst into tears. The tears came again when we were being bused out to the area we were to be working. What you see on tv, just doesn't prepare you for what you see in person.








I have never seen distruction like this. It was as far as the eye could see. Our group had people from all over the states of KS and MO, even someone else from Mulvane. We didn't meet the two families who's property we cleared, we don't even know if they survived the tornado, but I prayed for them almost the whole time we were working. It was our honor to help them and we'd do it again in a heartbeat.

We are hopeful to return once a month for the next few months. It's easy to think that you're just one person and insignificant to provide help in such a large disaster. But if everyone felt that way and did nothing, there would be no help at all. In addition, Kelton will never forget that we did this. I pray that our children will be driven to help others as they walk through life and I can't expect that to happen without modeling those behaviors for them.