Joplin

Volunteering at Joplin was a very humbling experience.   If you watch the news, sometimes it leaves you feeling helpless and defeated.  Let me start by saying that what these families went through is indescribable.  My husband said it best so I will just steal his words:

"All of the destruction that you have seen on tv is really there, and a whole lot more.  Most of the day I worked along with everyone else with my head down, trying to believe this place didn't really exist, but toward the end of the day, my perspective changed.  We worked with an older couple who had lost most everything they had, except each other.  They told us their story of how it happened and what they went through, and all of a sudden I found myself with a new perspective about the whole thing.  This was a terrible storm, and several people died and we all know about that stuff because we've seen it on tv for a week now, this is terrible and unexplainable.  But where my perspective changed was that after seeing the destruction firsthand, you can't imagine how anyone lived to walk out of that destruction.  This however, can be explained.  I stood in awe of God's awesome power, not the power of a storm, but the power of a savior, who spared the lives of thousands of people whose stories you won't hear on tv simple because they lived.  These people felt like heroes to get to tell us their story, and to us they are heroes.  They lost most of their stuff, but we didn't haul anything to the curb that can't and won't be replaced.  Their story deserves to be heard as well.  The photos I posted are not for personal glory, but personal and public reflection about the fact that God's hand is evident all over that town."