Joplin Cleanup by a cards fan

Now I know I am a Cards baseball blogger. Today’s post has nothing to do with baseball. So if you only want baseball check back later or read an older post.

I live about an hour away from Joplin I have worked in Joplin in the recent past and I have family that lives in joplin and friends in an around there. Today and tomorrow though I am going to help people that have had their lives turned upside down. I am going down with my church.

Today we helped a lady that I felt needed to be wrote about. She’s not someone who was seeking attention. She is a wonderful person who taught elementary for 35 years in Joplin. Now she is retired and now she is looking for a job as she has lost everything. I will not use her name fyi.

She takes care of her grandchildren and was beyond thrilled that they were not with her Sunday night. That night she hid in her bathtub. The bathroom is the only part of the house that still had a roof over it. As she came out of the house to see all the destruction, she helped people before herself. Today is Thursday and she is just now going back for her things. That night she went out and helped all those she could. Many she found dead including children.

What is so striking about her is how adjusted she is to loosing most all her possession’s. To her it was just stuff no reason to cry over stuff right, her and her grandkids are healthy and can move on. We helped get everything of her’s that could be saved loaded and moved to a locked building so those scum bags that want to loot will not gain much of what used to belong to her.

I want to point out that she is not in the main part of the destruction. She is across the street. That part there is nothing to save, only a small glimmer of hope some valued possession might be found and saved. She was going through her living room, what was left of it at least. We moved part of what was left of the ceiling on the floor, and there it lay. To some it’s a book to disregard to other’s it’s a sacred book to live by and have faith in. She like I fall into the latter. Her Bible lay, no other possession brought even a second thought if it was ruined but the Bible left her torn a part and distressed.

Now she will get a new Bible and may receive some new one’s from some new found friends up the road. What is so amazing about her story is just this, it’s not a story about someone that tried and tried to save a TV only to have it ripped from their grip by the tornado (true story by the way). She know’s what’s most important and let it show without concern.

I wish I could tell all the stories from today, this is just one of many. I hope this story helps you.

Advertisement