...Abby's Life in NCCC...: Halfway through round 1

Hi everyone!

Everything in Joplin is going well. My team is finally getting the hang of things at work, and we can begin to see the difference we are making. While the living circumstances are tough and sometimes cause us to bicker, other times it can be kind of fun having 'giant sleepovers'. For the past 2 nights, we've had a group of amish workers stay in the church with us. Most were from Kentucky, and they made the trip down to build houses. As you can probably guess, they pretty much built the house in a day. It's amazing what they can do. We knew that they got up really early so we were all prepared to be quiet in the evenings because they would probably be heading to bed early as well. Instead, they ended up keeping US up with their singing, jokes, and harmonica playing until 11. Usually were heading for bed around 10, haha. They were really interested in hanging out with us and we felt the same way. It was definitely a neat experience.

At work, I've begun working out in the field. The volunteers have dwindled down to practically nothing. Instead of us coordinating the volunteers and supervising them, we get to go out and do the work instead! One afternoon I spend demoing the inside of a house with crowbars and sledge hammers, but we've mostly been focusing on one individual property that really hadn't been touched since the storm. It was multiple acres with a house, 2 or 3 barns..and TONS of trees. Everything is destroyed and the project is overwhelming when you initially see the property. But just being there the past few days we have been able to make such a difference!! Our main focus lately has been one barn that has already been knocked down, but we had to go through and tear apart the boards and clean everything up. We've found christmas decorations, telephones, boy scout badges, a Beatles cassette, and so much more. Seeing personal items like this gives me a real wake up call about what we are doing. I've heard that the property we are working on has been passed down 4 generations. Unfortunately, the man living there does not plan to move back. I'm 90% sure we are demoing everything and cleaning up the lot so it can be sold.

Besides that project, one other project I did was help a lady move. We got sent to Dianne's house only knowing that she had to be out by the end of November. When we got there, she greeted us with hugs and smiles...she was so grateful that she had help. It turns out that she was EXTREMELY overwhelmed, and many things in her home had not even been packed up yet. It was up to us to help her out. As they day went on, she slowly shared her story with us. She originally lived with her husband and son in Texas. On May 22, 2007 she was evacuated from her home because of a tropical storm and flooding. She moved to Joplin, and in 2009 she her husband passed away, leaving here with her 9 year old son. And on May 22, 2011 --4 years to the day of the Texas flood--- her home was hit by the tornado. Somewhere in there she also broke her ankle and now has a plate a few screws in it. She told us about the night of the storm and her son asking her if they were going to die. She told us about the sound of debris hitting her door and a huge tree falling in her front yard. While her home had some severe destruction and some of the rooms were destroyed, her and her son were safe. In fact, when we were there yesterday her home was in good shape because it had already been repaired. But Dianne expressed to us the need to move somewhere else because it was too hard to be there. It took us most of the morning and part of the afternoon, but eventually we had her stuff packed up. When the 4 of us went to leave, she would not stop hugging us and began to cry. She told us that she didnt know what she would have done without us. She was so overwhelmed and didnt know how she was going to make the move with a bum ankle. She told us about how thankful she was for all of the volunteers that helped her as well as the Americorps workers. She told us we were always in her hearts. I've never met someone with so much gratitude. I felt so thankful to get to help that woman yesterday. It's something I'll truly never forget!!

Here are a few picturs of what we've been working on...as well as some fun we had at The House of Bounce. Hope all is well for everyone at home!!