Community on the Road in OK

This past week I was privileged enough to go to Moore, OK with a group from Heartland. We left at 6pm on Wednesday and traveled to Ottawa, KS. We checked in the hotel at 12:30am and left by 6:30am. It was a short stay, but we had a goal. We arrived at the church by 12noon and were helping with relief by 1pm. We were tired and the sun was hot. On the first day we worked about 4 hours and they let us off early to enjoy the 4^th. As a team we decided to go to downtown OKC.

There was a lot going on with live music and fireworks. Rather than listen to the music we decided to walk what was told to us as a few blocks to the Oklahoma bombing memorial. I thought I remembered a lot more about that sad day in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh decided to wreak terror. We arrived and there is still a makeshift memorial with people attaching things that were of value. There were some race numbers which a Ray, a teacher from Moore, told us they were from a memorial marathon ran the last 13 years that provides funding for the memorial museum.

Ray was for one of seven people that stood out to me during the trip. We were able to find out that Ray was one of the lucky ones who lived in Moore. His house was spared; the school he worked at was missed by the tornado. He and his 16, sixth grade students were huddled together in the bathroom. After he knew his students were safe and had someone to attend to them, he ran to Briarwood Elementary, the school that lost a gym, and the school where his son attends. He was to the point of panic when he saw the school for the first time, but it was not long before he scooped his son up in his arms and was thankful for the protection through the storm.

He then went home to find out it was ok, but lost power for five days. In the previous 7 years he really never took the time to know his neighbors but because of the power outage they started hanging out in their driveways, sharing stories and having cookouts. His neighborhood is now a community.

Ray had just returned from DC where he was at a teacher’s conference for 5 days. He said he could not wrap his mind around how different things looked and how much the volunteers had done in a few days. This was important to our team, which was involved in the cleanup process. We spent the majority of our time in Plaza Towers Elementary back yard. One of the hardest hit areas cleaning up a few houses that homes had been taken right off the slab. It was hard work and even though you could see a lot being accomplished we felt like there was still so much to do.

The second person is Jared. He works for Poured Out, the organization we worked with during the few days we were there. Jared was our project coordinator and also ran the skid loader to bring the rubble of someone’s home to the side of the street for the city to pick up. Jared is 20 years old, and we were able to talk to him about life. For someone so young he has a lot of perspective. He has a goal of eventually being able to work for Poured Out full time. He was working a good job, where he was paid well, but he was unable to have the flexibility of taking off 3 weeks here and there to work with Poured Out, so he quits his job on faith and finds a part time position at a church in town where he now has the flexibility he need to be able to go where he feels God is leading him too.

The other five people were the team from Heartland. These were people that were so flexible that took time away from work, they never complained (at least to my face), and were always willing to do the uncomfortable, even work in 95-degree weather to get the job accomplished. Angie, Jeff, Kayla, Dani, and Eric, I would take you anywhere, I would trust you with anything, and I might just follow your directions, just not all at once. I felt I knew them all well before the trip, but there is something special that happens on these trips that would take months or even years in a church setting. The forming of community is a special thing, and that is what this trip was all about for me.

On the trip home, we asked group questions, everyone had to answer, unless they were asleep. Some were funny, some were just to help us know the individual more. But as time progressed the conversation turned to more serious things. Things we would not normally share outside of family or those closest to us. And that is when I realized our community had become a family. Something everyone desires but very few receive.