July 21 & 22, 2011

July 21, 2011 – Thursday

Today was a really busy & fun day. The volunteers we had to turn away yesterday arrived this morning—30 people from First Baptist Church of Mountain Grove, MO. God has certainly sent us some delightful & very motivated youth groups to work in the WH!!!

I also had the wonderful privilege of meeting Lee Eberhardt in person. She was the lady who called the other day about the Extreme Makeover group in town looking for a family for whom they could provide a new home. She’s a bubbly little lady with twinkles in her eyes & she brought a friend with her to volunteer for the morning.

I can’t remember if I’ve described the work we have the volunteers doing. The far end of the WH has an area filled with lots of boxes & pallets of donations that need to be sorted, have all the different items boxed together on a pallet & be shrink-wrapped & moved into the area designated for those items. That part of the warehouse is not air-conditioned & gets very warm throughout the day as the doors of the loading docks open & close to receive donations or to load shipments of goods ordered by the different organizations that have applied for & received authorization from the city to serve as a distribution center to those affected by the tornado. The sorting areas have coolers with ice & water for the volunteers, but if they need a break from the heat, they can go to the air-conditioned break room. That’s where the rest rooms are located and it’s a nice place to enjoy a snack, or a meal, or a cold drink of water or juice from the refrigerator. During the brief orientation given to all the volunteers, they are encouraged to take breaks whenever they need them & also to drink lots of water & Gatorade to keep hydrated.

“Dad” came in this morning & then came back with his precious wife, Pat, this afternoon. “Dad” made some cds for me, sharing some of his favorite music with me. He also sent me 10+ emails he thought I’d enjoy!!!

Mark S.’ daughter, Jenny, came by the office to see her dad, so we got to meet her, too. She took my having adopted her grandfather pretty well!!!


Today was Mark S.’ last day working with Andrew & me. He is one of the leaders from his church who will be taking a busload of kids to a camp up in IA for a week. It was also Ron Chapman’s last day of work with us. He plans to come back next week for a few days. Before Mark S. & Ron left, we had a team picture taken behind the ACS sign near the warehouse entrance.

The warehouse is looking radically different from when we arrived just 10 days ago. God really blessed our team to accomplish His purposes. With all the other duties in managing the office, I didn’t make very much progress on my inventory spreadsheet, but I did get it set up & ready for data.

It was 102° when we headed back to Carthage & our motel. We decided that perhaps a little ice cream was in order to cool us down, so we split a pint of hand scooped strawberry ice cream from Braum’s.

Last night I downloaded all my Joplin pictures from my camera & put a photo of me driving a forklift on FB as my new profile picture. I’ve been receiving lots of interesting comments, but my favorite came from my son, Isaac: “I'm truly frightened for the people of Joplin!”

It’s time for me to get to bed, but I still have lots to do before I can crash for the night. I’d like to make a card to give to the guys at the WH to thank them for all they’ve done to help us. Good night from Missouri!!! Tomorrow we head back to Minnesota.


July 22, 2011 – Friday

It was a VERY short night last night—only 3 hrs of sleep because I was up late packing, documenting my adventures, & designing a Thank You card to give to the guys at the WH. Shortly after 5 am I started loading the van. Andrew got his things loaded, too, & we left for Joplin about 6 am.

I was so disappointed that I wasn’t able to get all the quantities of items in the 200 categories entered in my spreadsheet before leaving last night, because I had really hoped to print out the spreadsheet, bring it back to the motel & convert the data so I could surprise Carlene when she came in this morning. God obviously knew I wouldn’t have the time to do that along with packing, etc., too!

One of the first things I did this morning was to show Andrew my draft of the Thank You card. After he approved it, I tweaked it a bit & quickly printed it out on some card stock Andrew gave me, making a copy for each of the guys. I was really pleased with the finished product that included a picture of the guys on the front & a picture of our team for the past week, along with a couple of personal messages for the guys.

Andrew gave me a great quote this morning: “There is no ‘I’ in team.” I was feeling bad that he needed to straighten up the break room so I could get the cards finished so they would be a surprise. What a blessing that God chose us to work together this past week!!! HE helped us compliment each other’s strengths in an amazing way!!! We felt a little bit like Gideon’s 300 who conquered the Philistine’s huge army…all praise & honor go to the LORD for what was accomplished at the WH this past week!!! God brought us just the volunteers we needed to fill out His team!!!

This morning I attacked the loose ends, so when Carlene arrived I was able to bring her up-to-speed on upcoming shipments, the spreadsheet data, etc. When Andrew gave her a tour of the WH, she was very impressed & pleased at what was accomplished.

“Dad” stopped by mid-morning to take care of some business with Mark G. & to say goodbye, so I had Carlene take a picture of him with his MN daughter. I told him Andrew & I would enjoy the cds he made for me on the ride home.

The group from First Baptist Church of Mountain Grove, MO arrived to work again today. They were only available to work until noon today, & since Andrew & I planned to leave about then, Mark G. & Kelley decided to close the WH by 3 pm. Before group left at noon they asked to pray for Andrew & me that God would protect us on our trip home. One of the young men offered a very touching prayer for us.

More pallet sheets of 200s were palletized today. My hopes of getting a little experience working with AidMatrix vanished, but I was able to enter all the “200” data received so far on my spreadsheet so Carlene knows what is included in the count so far & can do the AidMatrix conversion. All the other #s are sorted by the 100s in file folders, so once all of them are sorted by classification they will be ready to enter, too.

Mark G. & Kelley designated several pallets of items for me to move with the forklift so I could get a little more experience. I felt very sad to leave & both Andrew & I commented that we wished we had one more week to gain experience & accomplish more work before heading home to MN!

We had planned to leave about noon, but by the time we ate lunch from Suzanne’s, I finished entering the 200s on my spreadsheet, & I moved the pallets & we said our final goodbyes to Mark G., Kelley & Carlene, it was 2 pm & 102°.

We gassed up the van, stopped at Braun’s for a little more ice cream & headed north on Highway 71. About an hour north of Joplin, I got really sleepy, so Andrew [assisted by “Susan”] took the wheel & I slept. I woke up to assist navigation around Kansas City, but once we were on I35, I went back to sleep until we were almost to Des Moines. At Ames, IA we stopped to get gas, eat a little food, stretch our legs, etc. When we got back on the road it was almost sundown & I took the wheel again.

Andrew’s friend, Alex, met us at the Target parking lot in Owatonna about 11 pm. We transferred Andrew’s gear to Alex’s car, had prayer & hugs, & headed our separate ways. Those last miles to Dodge Center were hard for me to stay awake, but God kept me & I arrived home just before midnight. I only brought a minimal amount of stuff inside, turned on the air conditioner, petted Purrcie a few minutes before putting him to bed & getting my PJs on. I’m off to my comfy bed!!!!!!!!!!