UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Today was our bonus day in Greensburg. You’ve all probably hear that the blizzard dropped somewhere between 20 and 28 inches of snow. Unfortunately, it was not stacked up in a uniform height. There were still bare spots mixed with drifts up to 5 feet high. Even if the highways had been clear this morning for our normal early departure, we couldn’t make it out of the church parking lot. Neither could most of the residents in Greensburg.
Later in the morning the snow stopped, and a bit later the bright sun and clear blue sky took over. It gave us the opportunity to meet some of the residents who assisted us in clearing snow drifts or dropped in to see how we were doing.
By mid-afternoon there was an opportunity to depart, and Chris Pyles decided to start the home trip. At about the same time, both Dively and Yoder vehicles refused to start with similar symptoms. We think the problem was moisture in the ignition components since the wind had packed both vehicles quite full of snow. After drying them out and jumping the batteries, both finally started. Now we think we are ready for departure tomorrow morning. That means we will not arrive back home until Monday evening.
Again, I’m not sure we will have internet connections tomorrow evening so the next report may be after we get back to Altoona.
Friday is normally our “wrap up” day for a mission journey. There wasn’t much normal about this particular day for this particular mission team. We had a blizzard adventure, but managed to find tasks that needed attention inside heated houses for half a day. Yeah!
Since the Greensburg area was in blizzard conditions, we decided to have our own winter Olympics when we returned to the church. All four vehicles managed to get stuck in a snow drift not more than 100 yards from the church. It didn’t take long outside to get chilled to the bone so the afternoon was spent in the nice warm church. We also had the famous Greensburg BBQ Mike cater our Friday special meal, and it was delicious. The smartest decision I made all week was to schedule that meal at the church.
Friday evening, in addition to our devotion period, we celebrated Kathy Fischer’s birthday. It is actually on Sunday, but we wanted an excuse to have a nice cake for dessert and I think we surprised Kathy.
Tomorrow morning we are scheduled to head east, but we will evaluate the road conditions before launching out just to be on the safe side.
I’m not sure we will have internet connections tomorrow evening so the next report may be after we get back to Altoona.
Hi,
Thursday was another very productive day for the VIM team at five separate houses in Greensburg. In addition to the work accomplished, we had a few youth related special events.
This morning our youth VIM member, Alenda Fischer, plus 5 or 6 adults visited the Greensburg school and were given a tour. The adults were dismissed after an hour and Alenda attended a few classes with the Greensburg students. It was a great opportunity, and a demonstration of local hospitality.
This afternoon, I was able to make contact with Debra Factor who along with her husband, Tony, are the adult leaders of the Greensburg ecumenical Youth for Christ organization. On behalf of the Greenwood UMC youth, I provided a $50 donation to support their programs which benefit local community youth. Joel Fowler, from Trinity UMC in Roaring Springs, also provided a dozen crosses that he makes from nails. Debra was very happy with the gifts, and thanked the Altoona District Mission Team for supporting the Greensburg recovery efforts with the 4 mission trips we have made.
This evening, in conjunction with our devotions, Alenda with coaching from Fay Yingling, signed the song “Jesus Loves Me” which was a special treat with a focus on youth talents that we all enjoyed.
Naturally, another topic that had everyone’s interest was the weather forecast for a blizzard tomorrow. It seemed like each time we heard an update the number of inches of snow increased. I want to assure all of you back home that we will treat this as an adventure, but we will do it safely. In my opinion it is a much better situation to have this storm coming while we are here in Greensburg than on a travel day. If the more serious reports prove to be true, we may just concentrate on making snow angels in the parking lot of our nice warm church. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Thanks again to all of our supporters.
It was a little chilly when we started our work today, but as morning progressed the sun seemed to warm us. The team got a lot accomplished again today, and several members had the opportunity to visit with home owners of houses we have worked on either this trip or a previous mission. One was Robert Kahne who was living in Haviland across from the church where our 1st VIM team stayed. He is enjoying his new phase one house and was eager to give the Pyles the grand tour.
We are happy to report that the out houses were all back in vertical position again today, and the wind was relatively mild. However, the weather forecasts for our remaining days here in Greensburg keep going down hill. Friday the high may not reach 30 degrees, it calls for snow.
Just after our evening devotions, Matt (who is the meet and greet man at the volunteer village inbrief / Greensburg tour guide) dropped in to visit for a while. He shared some interesting experiences that he has had as the spokesman for Greensburg recovery. He mentioned a web site ( http://www.thelope.com/2007/05/greensburg-before-and-after.html ) contains several before and after pictures of Greensburg that you might want to review.
Well, Wednesday is history, but we are on a roll.
Yesterday you will recall that we were experiencing high winds, and it was blowing from the south. Today we again had high winds but from the north so everything that blew by on Monday went zooming passed us in the other direction today. We also had a few snow flakes falling, but by the time they landed they were probably in Oklahoma.
Our projects went much smoother today, and the team accomplished a lot on five homes. The laminated flooring project was completed today, and that’s a good thing because the porta-john available for the crew at that site blew over. When we counted heads at supper, all team members were present and none of them smelled too bad so apparently no one was inside at the time.
Of special interest to those who have come to Greensburg on previous missions, we have learned that volunteer village (which we help build on our 1st trip) will be closing at the end of March. The facility will become a full time church. On the positive side, those who came on earlier mission trips would be very pleased with the progress of rebuilding Greensburg.
That’s a wrap for the Tuesday report.
Once again the Kansas wind was really blowing, but the temps were in the 60s and 70s. This evening we are watching a nice sunset after our initial day of working on projects. There is always a little confusion as the on site project coordinators sort out how to apply the talents of multiple teams of volunteers but by the end of the day we'd had team members working on four separate houses. Projects included carpentry, siding, laminated flooring, cleanup and fighting with the windy conditions.
We are blessed, however, since we have not experienced any serious fowl weather.
Thanks to all of our supporters.
God bless,
Ron Hoover
Katrina VIM Team Leader
Greetings from the Altoona District Mission Team!
We have arrived! The trip was long but everyone is safe. Some team members had even earned their Cabela’s shopping merit badge before they reached Wentzville, MO. The Wentzville UMC again turned over their facilities to us for an over night rest stop, and we really appreciate their hospitality.
Today we journeyed on to Kansas where we met a 40 mph head wind. Surprise! Surprise! Our next stop was at the Methodist church in Pratt where we were welcomed by my brother, his wife and the kitchen crew that we have come to love because they have fed us so well on all of our Greensburg mission trips. Once again the meal was superb. After the meal we were invited to visit the new Wheeler family home near Pratt which replaces their grand old 7 bedroom home that was destroyed by the Greensburg tornado. Not a single piece of furniture was ever recovered. All team members were impressed with the results of the Wheelers rebuilding efforts. Their new home is magnificent.
Next we went on to the UMC in Greensburg which we will call home for this week. It is a brand new facility, and Pastor Terry and his wife, Mary Mayhew greeted us, provided an orientation tour and gave us the key. The team members settled in, had evening devotions and most have retired early to recover from the long road trip.
That’s it for today. Thanks to all our supporters back home.
