Monday, August 4, 2008

Prayer...In Action: Last Day

Again on Saturday, we had about 30 volunteers. I'm just overwhelmed at the turnout for this event. If I went back to work myself, Chapman would have had 3 workdays from me. Instead, by inviting others to join in the effort, they have instead had over 100 work days from all the volunteers this week! FANTASTIC.


After I heard about the tornado, I called my childhood best friend to check on her parents. They lived across the street from the school district office that was demolished. She said her house didn't have much damage. So I was brought to tears when I saw this "not much damage" on our way into town the first day:


Almost every window is boarded up around the house, the deck has damage, and that black line is a gouge in the siding that was one of many.
But when you compare this to the rest of the town, it really is "not much damage."

On Friday, we watched a 2-story house around the corner be demolished by a crew. It took them about 45 minutes. I was glad to hear that family has already purchased this house and will be making the minor repairs to it to make it livable.

One of the first tasks we did today was to help the Lutheran church move their things into storage trailers. Here is some stained glass they salvaged. The bottom piece is mostly intact. But the upper pieces are mostly just twisted lead from the windows that got blown out and re-sculpted. Amazing.


And our major task for the day was moving and cleaning as many chairs as we could.
We could not find a flatbed trailer to help with our job, so we borrowed a truck from Londeen's (Hardware and Furniture Store) for the day. We took many small trips, but got a lot done.


Once again, there was a heat advisory and again the volunteers did a great job getting lots of work done but also keeping hydrated and taking shade breaks.

THANK YOU to everyone who helped out in any way!! You are a blessing to me, to Chapman, and to God.

Prayer...In Action Day 4

We had 30 volunteers today!!!


I didn't get photos of today's big tasks. One was moving everything except 5th grade and cafeteria stuff from a pod to St. Michaels. The other was taking absolutely everything out of another pod, locating a specific secretary's computer that is needed for Monday's enrollment--and then putting EVERYTHING back into the pod.

It was an extremely hot day with heat advisories in effect. But our volunteers were real troopers and didn't complain at all. Everyone stayed hydrated and took shade brakes and we got the jobs done.

We also continued to work on the debris pile beside the daycare center:


And was able to make the alley completely clean again:

Thanks to all the helpers from St. Michael's and All Angels in Kansas City, Grace Cathedral in Topeka, and the Boy Scout troop from Witchita.