be joyful always: Joplin

I've been in Missouri the past few weeks and during staff training our kamp directors felt called to send our staff out to Joplin, MO for the day. Some of you may not have heard much about this town, but it was hit awfully by a tornado that left Joplin literally in shreds. So we traveled two hours down there for the day to serve with Samaritans Purse. What we saw was shocking. Everything was flattened. You could drive for ten minutes through the town and everywhere you looked you saw flattened houses and debris. We noticed big X's on houses and numbers inside of the X. If the house had that, that meant that there were people in the home who passed away because of the storm. Y'all, what we saw was heartbreaking.

My team served a sweet sweet lady named Margie. Margie is 84 years old and was home alone when the storm hit. Margies roof is gone, with her back yard scattered with random belongings ranging anywhere from christmas decorations to sewing projects. Sweet Margie arrived at the house in the middle of us clearing up her back yard. She was in tears. She'll never be able to move back into the house because of all the things that had happened to it and all the neighbors she had lost. My heart broke for Margie that day. Myself and the rest of the team reassured her that we were going to clear that backyard for her, get rid of the huge tree that was looming over half of it, and help her make a smooth transition to her new home. My heart went out for Margie that day.