The First Work-Day in Joplin

This mornin’ we woke up at 6:30 to get ready for our first full day o’ work. Errr-body was anxious ‘bout gettin’ started. Ms. Vieth made us a hearty breakfast of egg, water, ham, sausage, onion, salt, pepper, pear, eggs, grape, peach, grape, pineapple, fruit, potatoes, cheeze, eggs, more eggs, milk, water, grape, and peach… and eggs. We left at approximately 800 hours and we arrived at our first house ready to go! We were split into three different groups: One was in-charge of paintin’, another hangin’ siding, and the last one buildin’ a fence! The four people who were in charge of siding were kind of off in their own world for the day but they got a lot accomplished! Surprisingly, we discovered that Bean and Jon knew how to read a tape measure! For the painting crew, we had a couple of pro painters with us and the new-bees caught on really quick! The fencing crew was the last to arrive at their job site and started by measuring the fence line. Then the fencing crew split in two and while one worked outside digging holes in the heat the other waited for wood in the air conditioned Home Depot. After a long hard difficult challenging day of demanding, arduous, excruciating, back-breaking, lung-busting, debilitating labor, the whole group took a tour of the City of Joplin. During this tour, we saw many homes and buildings that had been recently rebuilt. We learned from our tour guide Shenen, who was one of the survivors, many interesting facts like there were 400 mph+ winds and that the high school was moved to a mall. It was all very shocking and very heart-breaking. The mile wide tornado travelled six miles through Joplin and destroyed everything in its path. Afterwards we ate a restaurant that came highly recommended by Coach Gubera. He was right when he said we would bet lots of good food at a reasonable price. Then we arrived back and ate homemade ice cream while we had our evening meeting. We are looking forward to another hard day of work.