Joplin Part 2

A few days have passed since our Joplin trip. I was hoping to record more of it before too much time passed, while my impressions were still fresh. The days have kept me busy, although I still think of things that happened or things that I saw during our day there.

After we said good-bye at our work site and picked up my mom, we took some time to drive through the worst hit section of the city. Whereas most of the homes in the neigborhood where we had been working still had a basic structure standing, many of the homes in the most devastated section had nothing except for the foundation and piles of rubble. It was unbelieveable; it's hard to imagine how anyone survived. I was driving so I couldn't take any pictures, but I don't think pictures can completely capture what it's like to look at long stretches of utter destruction. And I'm sure it's better now than it was 3 weeks ago.

Back on the road, we all shared our experiences, thoughts, impressions. I returned home utterly exhausted, but satisfied. That night I dreamt about debris! And since then I've pondered several impressions that I had during and following that day...here are some of them (and some of these things were mentioned by mom or friends as we drove home)

***We all agreed that the Samaritan's Purse orientation first thing in the morning was pretty neat. As my mom said, we could feel the presence of God though it wasn't a church or prayer meeting. But the purpose of being there was to go and serve. The purpose beyond the physical work was to show Christ's love in a tangible way. The leader explained how a Bible would be given to each home owner served along with an opportunity to pray with them. I believe that all forms of Christian work and service are important, but it was a wonderful experience for me to serve in that capacity and I would love to do more of it. I gained respect for the particular ministry with which we were working.  I hope that as Daniel gets older he can participate in service to others whether it's in a disaster relief situation or just a neighbor in need. There were many teenagers helping in Joplin, and where my mom volunteered there were youth groups that had come to help.

***As I mentioned in the previous post, I really appreciated our team leader, who just a few days earlier had been a volunteer like us. On our team was one person especially who had either been there for a while, had been a team leader previously, or else wanted to be a leader! He had a bit of an "attitude" and tended to be bossy. (to be honest it got on my nerves a few times!) He was not the assigned leader but in my opinion he seemed to want to make himself second in command. It was amusing (and sometimes annoying) but later I thought about the contrast between the humility and encouragement of our leader and the attitude of the wannabe leader =)  Along those lines I learned a little more about myself.....there were a couple of times that someone who did not have delegated authority gave me direction in a bossy kind of way....and I found myself reacting on the inside. Teamwork requires sacrifice, putting up with others' faults (and hoping they forgive my own!), and learning to get along with all kinds of people.

***While the scope of devastation was enormous, the amount of compassion being shown was overwhelming. Donations and help have poured in from around the country. Someone remarked on the way home that we could not know love and compassion if it were not for pain and suffering. I look forward to when there is no more suffering (heaven), but in this world were suffering never seems to end, it is a blessing to see giving and compassion and blessing to be a part of it.