A Week Ago Today. Tuesday.

Early morning wake up. Alarm goes off at 0630. Wake up, get ready for the day. Walk outside and realize with some relish that we are not automatically drenched in sweat a la Louisiana. It's actually refreshing out. I get a call from Uncle Johnny on Rickys phone verifying our location and a mere 60 seconds later, he's pulling around the corner and to the van. Josh and I already have the hood up and the dashboard console out, and are looking at the problem again. Uncle Johnny walks over, takes one or two looks and starts disassembling this and that with his tool kit, it is MUCH more advanced than the one we have in the van. Pieces come off, this goes here, that goes there, and just a little moment later, we are ordering a replacement part from a Ford Dealership up the road in nearby Aurora, MO. Uncle Johnny reattaches the piece that we have under the hood and, just like that, we are road worthy again! We leave the trailer at the church and load up the youth, and coolers full of water and gatorade in the now fully functional van, Pastor Nathan's van, and Uncle Johnny's truck and set off toward Joplin. As we make our way through Joplin, we are all remarking on how the section of town that we are driving through to get to the Lutheran Church that is our base doesn't look very bad. Not bad at all. But then, I miss a turn (this would become par for the course, I think if anyone kept count of missed turns or exits the number would definitely be an embarrassing figure) and as we crest the top of a hill on 32nd street, we notice that Joplin turns from nice midwestern American town to barren wasteland. Everything was GONE. We didn't see it for very long, but we saw it. As we turned back, we made contact with the volunteer base. We get an address and a name, The Atteberrys. The project is the complete removal of the pool and deck, both of which survived remarkably. We drive out to the site where we will be working for the next couple of days, and the destruction laid out before us literally silences the van, there's gasps and "Oh my God"'s. The scope of demolition that is unfolding before us is absolutely mind numbing. If never before in my life have I been astounded, I am today. We get off the van at the proper address; guesswork at best, the foundations and basements are all indistinguishable from one another, it's just row after row of nothing. Tree stumps and dirt, basements and foundations, all leveled. The thought process in my mind is at a standstill. On a tv screen it looks bad, on big pictures in the newspapers it looks bad, in reality tho, there was no escape. Everywhere you looked there was debris, detritus of lives blown away, bricks and lumber splintered and piled, spray paint on the roads for directions and street names. As we begin our work, a tiny drop in the ocean of tear down and rebuild that need to happen for Joplin to continue, the mood gradually lightens and we take to our work with gusto. We want to help these people. We want to do more, and the only way to do more is to do what is in front of us. Chainsaws are going, the young and old alike are working with gusto. We have been given more than one speech on hydration, and through-out the day Josh is yelling to drink water. Different folks need to be told to go and take a break, to get a rest, to go and drink. The people in this trip have absolutely no quit in them.
Lunch time comes as a surprise, and we hear that the high school is a site for volunteers to be able to go and have free meals and cold water. I imagined a cafeteria setting. We set out. As we near the high school, we again are hushed by the magnitude of destruction that happened here in this tiny beautiful town. There will be no cafeteria for sometime. In some areas of the massive school the roof is completely gone and the walls have imploded. The windows are blown out and the area is completely fenced off. We get in line, some volunteers from other organizations are in line with us, they are from everywhere. Colorado, Mississippi, Vermont, Virginia, California, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas. My heart is warmed as I hear the different names and locations from where they come. All to help. There is no pay here, there is no overtime or bonus. There is just a hurting people who have had everything taken from them. We eat a hearty lunch and go back to the work site. We pass the entrance of the high school and see that the JOPLIN HIGH SCHOOL has been damaged. Only the OP remain from the city's name. But looking a little closer we see that someone has either spray painted or duct taped the letters H and E to the beginning and end of where JOPLIN was. Now it reads HOPE HIGH SCHOOL. Again, I am amazed at the spirit of the people here.
We make it back and finish out the afternoon. It is BLAZING hot. This is sort of a problem because after a hard days work, and needing to come back to finish in the morning, we find out that the Air Conditioning has gone from the van. We get home and I have had a shower, I call the Ford Dealership and verify that the part will be in tomorrow morning and the location. We get an AMAZING dinner of Pasta and meatballs and marinara sauce, garlic butter bread and of course water and gatorade. Jenni, Josh and myself make a Wal-Mart run for caps, bandannas and some other supplies we will be needing for the week. Day one on the jobsite was a success. I saw in these young people the want and ability to help, no matter the temperature or discomfort. As we arrive back home from the trip to Wal-Mart, we each settle from the day in our own ways, and begin to unwind. It has been almost a full day except for the late start we got due to the repairs on the van, tomorrow, I will have the new part, Uncle Johnny will put it in, and we will be all set... We ALL agree that it's about time to hit the hay! I set the alarm for the next morning to be able to go and retrieve the part that we need, and it's lights out.