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.

Prayer...In Action Day 3

My Day 3 (Wednesday) was mostly spent preparing for Day 4 (Friday). But I did get some pictures first thing in the morning. We began the morning picking up the yard around the school. Here is the house right beside the gradeschool, on the main drag for all the volunteers to see as they drive into town:


Here's the school yard we are working on. For those of you who knew Chapman before, you can easily tell the destruction. For others, you can see how the tree in the foreground has basically been peeled, and that under the green tarp part of the gym is missing. We are in the playground area, picking up metal and glass that is everywhere.


The tornado was 6 weeks ago, and new life is springing forth. All the trees that were ripped and peeled are now sprouting new leaves. They look so strange! I wonder what they will look like several years from now.


Here's some evidence of the power of the storm. These metal signs have been folded up, and the metal sign is bent almost to the ground:

Many of today's workers have been with us all week and planned to just work a half-day. But we started a big project just before they were to leave, and so they stuck with it and continued with some really hard work of carrying book boxes and other equiptment from storage pods to a trailer, and from a trailer to the Parish House where the grade school will be.

I am overwhelmed at the outpouring of help especially from members of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas as well as other family friends. When the tornado hit, I knew *I* wanted to go back and do something. But now instead of having one worker each of these days, there are 10 or 14 or...maybe even 30 on Friday/Sat. There's a parable in there!

Thursday is a day of rest. Shawn and I are visiting family, the youth and college students who have been helping are driving down to a youth Happening event in Wichita. Craig Loya, the campus missioner, is busy doing the rest of his week's work in this one day so that he can be present every day of our trip.

Prayer...In Action Day 2

Tuesday, day 2, it rained all day.
Two volunteers dropped out before we began because we didn't have our contingency plans in order until around 9:30. Luckily, they'll be able to work for a bit on Saturday instead.

Today, we were able to move more cafeteria supplies and food. The cafeteria went from 0% to 90% complete in the 2 days we've been here:


One problem with getting work done is finding enough trucks and trailers to haul stuff. Another issue is that there are too few dumpsters and volunteers can no longer take stuff to the dump for free.
Today, the daycare finally got a dumpster. It took us about 20 minutes to fill the dumpster, and we still had the same amount still sitting in the alley, and 4 times as much in the basement to be taken out:


By the end of the day, we had gotten through our other work but still had some time. So we started going door to door cleaning the markings off of homes:

I hope we're done with rain for the week. There is SO MUCH still to do to prepare the schools.

Prayer...In Action Day 1

Today is the first day of "Prayer...In Action" in my home town, Chapman Kansas. A tornado hit on June 11th and wiped out all 3 schools and many homes. When I heard about it, I felt I had to do something. So I planned a mission trip from our church in Ohio to Chapman. At one point, 9 people were going to attend, but later on only our family could go. So we put out the word in the Diocese of Kansas. We advertised this as "A Mission Trip You CAN Do" and encouraged people to come for just one or two days. We've had a great turn-out.

Early in the day, we went to one of the storage buildings, and saw a french horn that survived the tornado...sort of...


When we drove in this morning, Alice Louden's house was standing. When we went back to the pod in the afternoon, it was being demolished. She was one of the best gradeschool teachers ever, and a friend of mom's. She died several years ago, and in a way it was nice she didn't have to see her family home like this:


We didn't have enough vehicles to move all the things we needed to, so we moved several things 4 blocks walking down the street:

Prayer...In Action Day 1 famiy friends

I have been talking up "Prayer in Action" with everyone I'm connected with. I've been talking to old school friends. Here are a friend's 2 sisters and nephew who came to help out. They are farm folk and were a great help. Here, they're running a magnet over the playground to pick up nails. We found lots of nails, glass, roofing, etc:

It was great to have their truck! We were able to unload some of the cafeteria stuff from the pod and into St. Michael's kitchen:


And here they are. Thanks, Nancy, for inviting them!

Prayer...In Action Day 1 desk and chairs

Here we are moving desks and chairs from a pod to St. Michael's catholic church lawn to be cleaned:


Scrubbing chairs can make your back pretty tired:

Even almost-two year olds can work: