Joplin

By mid-morning I figured out the source of the overwhelmingly foul stench: dead birds.


This was trip number two into the "war zone" and I would like to say that I had been desensitized to what I was witnessing, but that just isn't true.  Everywhere I looked, I saw either total devastation or craziness. Earlier when we topped a hill on the way to 26th street, the vehicle full of church members became dead silent.  About two miles into the total devastation, one of the members of our crew finally said, "I knew it was going to be bad, but there is no way I could have prepared myself for this.  That pretty much summed up what we were all thinking.

Saturday, nineteen of us from the churches of Christ in Ponca City took a caravan to Joplin, MO to help out in any way we could.  We worked through the church of Christ on 26th and Connecticut which is just 100 yards from the area of total devastation that is about a mile wide and six miles long.  Since the church building sustained some roof damage, they converted it into a disaster relief area.  Ed Hoggett, an elder there, and Richard Chambers, the preacher are heading up one of many relief efforst in the city that sees slow progress.  One family at a time.  I took our crew to the eastern side of the affected area and spent all day cleaning up just one yard.  I made plenty of observations though.

There were plenty of crazy situations.  One house (I use the word "house", but it was nothing more than a pile of rubble) had nothing standing but the shower.  On the shower head hung a shower caddy with shampoo and conditioner still in place. 

At one house we worked at, we found a mason jar full of hot cocoa, marshmallows and such with Christmas ribbon still attached to the lid.  It was perfectly intact in some rubble that was once a shed and now resembled a pile of match sticks.  We were told that the jar came from the kitchen. 

Across the street was the remains of a house.  Roof was gone.  All walls were gone except for the coat closet, which just happened to be where the family hid for cover. 

Just to contrast that, the house we were working at across the street from the coat closet had only lost their roof.  Fifty yards away was a house that was beautiful: nicely manicured lawn, flower beds, no problems whatsoever.  Then next to it, total destruction again.  I don't know if that is amazing or lucky.  Or both.

The craziest one of all was a softball.  We found a softball in the backyard that was impaled by a piece of wood an inch wide and three inches long.  Imagine the force necessary to impale a piece of wood into a softball!

It's easy to see God at work in Joplin right now.  There are thousands upon thousands of volunteers in town every day helping in any way they can.  We were to see a couple dozen Salvation Army volunteers walking our neighborhood passing out water.  One man from Lancaster Pennsylvania who owned a flooring business had loaded his van down with cases of water and was passing them out to anybody who was thirsty.  We met a group of college students in the Campus Crusade for Christ from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas who were staying in Branson.  They drove in to help and happened upon us.  We put them to work.  We had heard of some looting going on, but I really think that such horrible people were few and far between.

One thing I noticed was that the tree trunks that were still standing all seemed to have Spanish moss all over them.  Upon closer inspection it was shredded insulation clinging to whatever was left standing, including all structures.  The comedian Ron White once quipped about tornadoes, "It's not that the wind blows, it's what it blows!"  I came away convinced that I would never survive the debris in the air.
 
I am also convinced that a tornado is nothing more than a very big coffee grinder.  It takes anything and grinds it up.  I spent two hours raking ground up shingles, ground up trees, ground up construction materials, and ground up "things" I couldn't identify in the front yard.  It was while raking that I noticed the aforementioned stench.  I thought that maybe the owners had dogs, but then I started raking up birds, parts of birds, squirrels, you name it.  My biggest fear was that I would lift up a knocked down privacy fence and find a human body.  Thankfully God spared me that horror.
 
Words just can't describe what the beautiful town of Joplin has become, but my words can describe what needs to be done.  Joplin is going to need volunteers helping for a long time.  We're not talking weeks, but months and years just to clean up the debris, much less start the rebuilding process.
 
My wife is fond of saying, "If you get to feeling sorry for yourself, go help somebody."  Amazingly I didn't see Joplinites feeling sorry for themselves, but picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and helping each other.  If you are wanting to volunteer your time or money, get in contact with me on facebook, or comment on this post and I will point you in the right direction.  We need to show the world that we aren't a selfish people but are in this thing together.