Thursday - 1/10/13

Today was going to be our half day of working, but it turned into more like 3/4 day of working.  Coach Loveall's group went back to Brenda's house where they finished dry-walling and did some mudding and taping.  Coach Bolluyt & Profit's group went to do some work at Southern Missouri State University at the Baptist Student Center.  They had knocked out a wall, which left tons of drywall dust throughout the whole building.  So, they had to clean that up, tear out some carpet, do some mudding and taping, and wet-sand some of the mud that had already dried.  Hayley R. especially enjoyed cleaning out the refrigerator, and I hear that Bolluyt & Profit got in a game or two of ping pong. :)

My group went to a house where we stained the hardwood floors, painted some trim work, and attempted to sand some scratches out of the hardwood in the living room.  We can now add power sanders to the list of tools that we are competent at using!  The girls did a great job and the floor looks fabulous.  We hope to be able to go back tomorrow to polyurethane the floor and see it finished.

When we were done, Art (our bus driver) came to pick us up and he drove us to meet the other groups, all of which had finished at their sites and were working on raking a man named CJ's yard.  CJ is legally blind and lived right in the path of the worst part of the tornado when it hit Joplin.  He and his sister were in his house and survived, but were trapped under rubble for 7-8 hours until rescue workers could uncover them.  Since then, CJ bought a house in a different part of town and has a huge yard with tons of trees.  So, we helped him rake.  It took our whole group of 32 people a few hours to complete it, but we made it fun.  CJ was really nice.  When we were done with his yard, he asked us to do his neighbor's yard, who is an older woman who drives him places when he needs to go.

Cody & Ben are working hard.

Don't dump Ben in the ravine, Cody!

By that time it was 2:15 and we hadn't eaten lunch yet.  We decided to go back to Abundant Life, shower & make a sandwich if we wanted to, then go bowling & out to supper.  It was a fun evening.  Different groups ate at either Red, Hot & Blue, Outback or Olive Garden. 

It's hard to believe that tomorrow's our last day of working here in Joplin.  The students have been great - we feel very blessed to have such a great group of kids to work with!