FCCBRLA Mission: Making Progress

Everyone is feeling the effects of the hard work from this third day of mission work. We were split between two houses - Susan and Rebecca's houses. Today, Rebecca's house consisted of insulation and hanging plywood. At Susan's house, finishing touches were done, such as the hanging of doors, cleaning the yard, sweeping, mopping, and finishing of the smoke detectors and light fixtures. After these tedious tasks, Kenny, Brandon, and Tom joined the others at Rebecca's house. After sunburns, scrapes, sore muscles, thousands of Tom Cody's hilarious statements, and an ice cream van visit, we made great progress. In a course of 36 hours, Laura has force fed us ice cream three times... To say the least, we are NOT going hungry. Especially with Lucy, Carol, and Beverly's delicious cooking!

This afternoon, we were treated to a candle-light and flowered dinner served by the youth from Lindenwood Christian Church from Memphis, Tennessee who were also here on mission duties. After dinner, two personal stories were shared which were very touching, along with a music video called "Hometown" by Kenny Foster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx2aHbDWzhg who grew up in Joplin and was affected by the tornado. His family still attends South Joplin Christian Church, and his dad Kenton was our tour guide yesterday.

The first story told was from a 92 year old woman whose house was completely demolished by the tornado. She had just arrived home from church, and noticed her hanging plants on the front porch blowing sideways. She then began to take cover but lost consciousness. When she came to, the storm passed but she was stuck in the rubble. Two neighbors found her, pulled her out and brought her to the hospital.

The second story was from her daughter, whose house was unaffected, yet she was worried about her mother after learning the path of the tornado destroyed her mother's neighborhood. She could not drive to her mom's house due to debris, so she parked close and walked to the house in sandals. When she and her husband reached her mother's house, they were unable to find her in the pile of debris left over from her the house. Later that night, she was contacted by the neighbors to inform the daughter that her mother was safe at the hospital in Pittsburgh, KS.