A Day in the Life of a Volunteer....

So what exactly are we doing all this time in Moore?  Well, here's a sample....

Basically, I (Dana) work in the office with Sandra, another long term volunteer.  We coordinate the calendar with Carlee (back in the home office in Michigan, when she isn't in Haiti), keep expenses straight (well, when we can gather up the receipts from the guys), interact with the homeowners as needed, greet new volunteers and explain the routine, and try to keep things scheduled and running as smoothly as possible.  

Kent's jobs are more varied.  He might be at City Hall getting permits, or picking up supplies at FEMA, or leading a crew out in the field, usually cutting down trees or picking up rocks and raking lots.  Since he's an early riser, he often sticks breakfast in the oven to heat up for the morning (the ladies have everything prepared, and bribe him with coffee!)  

So what do the regular volunteers do?  Basically, whatever is asked!  In Moore, it might be looking for personal items in a home before it's demolished, pulling out wires and metals to recycle, carrying trash to the curb and sorting it into appropriate piles, picking up cement chunks after a slab has been removed, or raking out a lot smoothly to ready it for new construction.  They might cut down trees, put up tarps, clean up mold, paint, or lay flooring.  (As a general rule, Poured Out leaves rebuilding to the local economy, but there were a couple of exceptions made to that in Moore in special situations.)  A volunteer might stay back and help clean up the church (someone has to do it!) or help with the donations that come in.  

Many people ask how they can help in disaster relief.  First, understand you don't have to be there in the first few days.  In fact, authorities usually don't want you there that fast!  They need time to get security and health protections established and recovery processes functioning.  There will be plenty for you to do in the following weeks.  

Find an organization to work through.  Don't just show up not knowing who you will be working with.  You probably will have trouble finding a place to stay, and are likely to get in trouble if you are out in the field, even with the best intentions, without some official sponsorship.  There are dozens and dozens of volunteer relief organizations that respond to disaster areas.  Most everyone is familiar with Samaritan's Purse, but there are many others that work in similar fashion.  Contact one of them to see how you can help.

Understand that most organizations won't let kids under 14 in the field (and that age needs a parent beside them.)  Please respect this.  It's a safety and liability issue.  We all want to encourage humanitarian endeavors with our children, but there's a time and place and generally disaster clean-up isn't it.  Additionally, often having children in the field actually slows up the process, and sometimes speed (before the next rain/storm begins) is needed.  

Be prepared to do whatever is needed, even if it doesn't seem like it would be directly helpful. There are reasons for how things have to be done; unfortunately, there's not always time to stop and explain those reasons.  Trust your leaders, and ask questions at more convenient times.  If you don't like the answers, find a different organization to work with.  

Expect to have to replace or repair a tire (or two).  And if you don't - lucky!

Know that you might have to pay your way with an organization.  With Poured Out it's $25/day/person. For that you get two meals, a cot or mat to sleep on in dormitory style surroundings with total strangers, and a shower - probably cold.  Actually here, $10 goes directly to the church to offset utility and wear and tear expenses, while the rest is used for food and supplies.

Donations - the best, easiest, quickest solution is money.  But a word of caution on monetary donations - check out the agency first.  Too often a large percentage of your money goes for business expenses, not victim relief.  (Full disclosure - no one in Poured Out receives a salary - all donations go to disaster relief.  The full time staff all raise their own missionary support.)  A good alternative is a gift card. Yes, paper towels, gloves and cleaning supplies ARE always needed, but perhaps what this person needs most is his/her blood pressure medicine refilled or their tools replaced so they can resume work.  A gift card will help with that where you couldn't, and you know it gets into a family's hands.

In Moore a typical day would look like this,,,
5:45ish  Someone plugs in the coffee and puts the morning breakfast in the oven
6:30 Dorm lights come on - there are only 3 bathrooms so the rush and line ups begin
7:00 or 7:15 Breakfast
7:45ish Morning group devotions followed by daily work team division and assignments
8:00ish  Load tools and teams and go to the assigned work site
During the work day people take breaks and eat lunch at their convenience.  If necessary because of weather or health issues people may return to the church.
5:00 (could be earlier or much later) pick up tools and clean up to return to church; hit the shower trailer!
6:30 ish Supper and review of the day
7:30ish Tool and equipment repair and prep - free time to get to know others and share experiences
9:00 Steve's movie of the night
Whenever you are tired - bed

Every day a couple of people stayed back to help with cleaning the building.  Additionally, there were some extra tasks on Saturday to prepare for evening church and church Sunday morning.

They key to a satisfying volunteer experience is to come expecting to help with whatever tasks the leaders have for you.  If you come with a list of things YOU want to accomplish you probably will go away disappointed.   If you come with an open heart to be helpful you will find those opportunities abundant.

If you have interest or questions about helping with a disaster response, feel free to contact Kent or Dana for more information.  

Pictures from Moore

Pictures can't start to do justice to the tragedy left behind from devastating storms and natural disasters, whether tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis.... They can only begin to catch the physical loss, but can never express the emotional toll.  I'm not going to try to compete with the media and all the pictures available online, but I will share a few of the hundreds we took.

We have worked here for just over a month now, and almost across the board, the last picture captures the spirit and determination of the people of Moore.  A few have decided to leave, but most have sorted through the rubble and are hard at work rebuilding their homes and lives.  We are blessed daily by the residents we meet and are privileged to get to know.  Moore Strong!

Moore OK

We arrived in Moore on Thursday, June 6.  Our church (Heritage, Rock Island, IL) was sending a semi load of supplies and wanted us to help coordinate the delivery on the ground in Moore, so while they were gathering supplies we had a little extra time to prepare and travel.  We stopped for a night in Lebanon to visit Dad and Mom, and then headed on the next day.  Our dear friends, the Ticknor's, had already arrived in Moore and had secured a place for us at Surburban Baptist Church where they were staying and working (they could only do this because we are "little", only needing one parking place.  On Friday we scouted the location for delivery and storage of the items coming from our home church, due in the next day. (The supplies were for Poured Out, a disaster relief organization from Michigan, headquartering out of May Avenue Wesleyan Church, in OKC., but were being stored off-site at a storage facility.)  

After visiting May Avenue church Friday morning and making sure everything was ready for delivery, we stopped at the church hosting the relief agency we were signed up to work through.  They told us we weren't needed!  Try back next week!  We had gotten approval from them before leaving home, so this was a surprise to us.  (They just had so many volunteers they really didn't need more just then.)  So we went back and cleaned out a storage shed at May Avenue.

Saturday morning the semi was scheduled to be unloaded at 9:00.  We got there half an hour early to make sure all was ready, only to find that the truck was almost half unloaded already!  And we met Steve Adams, co-founder of Poured Out.  After chatting with him awhile, he convinced us to move over to May Avenue and work with Poured Out for the summer!  So looks like tomorrow will be moving day.  We will miss being close to Ticknor's, but we will have electricity - which with temps already in the 90's, will save our generator a lot of hard use.  

The skid loader and shrink-wrapped pallets made the unloading so much easier!

 Loading much needed supplies to take to the church to use for 

volunteers, distribute to needy families, and use in the field

 The city of Moore donated storage space until supplies 

were needed; they were all gone within a week.

 The unloading crew

Saturday afternoon, Vaughn and Jake took us out to see some of the devastation.  Pictures can't start to show all the damage, and some times you simply forget to take pictures as you look at all the horror around you.  How the death toll was not much higher is simply a miracle.  See a later post for pictures.

This afternoon, after church, we visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial, site of the Murrah Building bombing in 1995.  The Ticknor's have made us honorary grandparents (a most delightful job!) and included us in their outing.  The memorial is a lovely tribute to those lost the day of the attack.  The Gates of Time are separated by a reflecting pool, and there are 168 empty chairs on the side remembering the victims.  Especially heartbreaking are the 19 smaller chairs for the children killed.  As we gathered by the Survivor Tree, the Ranger explained how the tree was almost dead, and investigators wanted to cut it down to search for blast evidence, but it was spared and began blooming again, and still thrives today.  

So, it is Oklahoma - and what do you do after church Sunday night in Oklahoma??  Some people go out for ice cream.  But not our guys!  

For now, it's time to secure for travel, and get some sleep, 'cause tomorrow is moving day!  (But only a few miles.)

Oklahoma tornadoes

The Weather Channel ended our indecisiveness over summer travel locations with news reports of the second set of EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes to hit Oklahoma in two days.  Having done clean-up work before post-Katrina and in Joplin, we both knew we wanted to go help out in Moore, so we got our paperwork sent in online and started readying the RV.

We don't know when exactly we will be leaving, but we will be going within a couple of weeks.  Our son is moving into an apartment with some other guys, so the house will be empty, and all he will have to do is stop over and mow every week.  No worries about pipes freezing in the summer or making sure the snowblower will start!

Wintering in Illinois

A combination of events conspired to keep us off the road Jan-May, 2013.  Primarily, our caretakers had moved out, and leaving a 4800 sq. ft. house empty all winter in northern IL isn't a good idea.  (We can't find a buyer for it!)  Second, our youngest was taking classes at the community college (and no, leaving a 19-year-old boy in charge of the house wasn't an option LOL), and we wanted to encourage him in his schooling.  Third, we each had medical issues (nothing serious, just needed time to take care of) to resolve. After having to come back early both of the last two winters, it was with great reluctance (read that disappointment) that we winterized the RV and hunkered down for the duration.

We took advantage of the time to haul out all of our totes and boxes full of pictures and scan them into the computer.  We saved a small photo box of pictures and mementos for each family member, and (GULP!) threw out the rest of the print copies, after making numerous backup DVD copies!  It was a gruelling project, but felt so good to accomplish!  We also organized the digital pictures already on the computer. We had over 130,000 pictures that we labeled with dates and locations and tagged each person for future reference.  What a job!!

We  wrote up a timeline of travel and major life events from 1981 (marriage) till present day.  (You can see that in the LIFE BEFORE BLOGS tab) and started archiving stories in the blog back from 1980 (yeah, that one will be awhile getting caught up!)  Hopefully, we will end up with a fairly complete journal of life and travels to give our children.  We also got some serious genealogy work done on Kent's family tree (I have worked on mine since the 90's, but there are always more discoveries to make.)

And we downloaded all the songs we wanted from our CDs onto the computer (and extra hard drives), and cleaned up boxes of those. (Anyone remember Spanky and Our Gang?  Well, Kent does, and wouldn't let me just pitch those!)  We wanted to do something with DVDs too, but never decided what.

Our winter entertainment

And now it's spring - at least on the calendar.  Mother Nature is not wanting to let go of winter, but we are more than ready to make some travel plans and get on the road!  For now, our 32nd anniversary is coming up..... hmmm, what to do??

Tombstone and Boot Hill

As our parting shot from St David we took a trip to old Tombstone and Boot Hill.  Tombstone is the town where the shootout at the OK Corral occurred in 1881 when the Clantons and the Earps were competing for control of the town.

The Clanton gang always wore red.  These two are
obviously Clanton cohorts.

The main street is blocked off from traffic but you can still drive and park along the side streets.  The town is totally commercialized with several place offering exhibitions of the gun fights that occurred all too often in old Tombstone.  There are more museums than you can count and they charge from $3-$10 per person.  The OK Corral where the gun fight that made the town famous occurred charges $10 but it includes access to the OK Corral, the museum next door and a copy of the Tombstone newspaper that recorded the events of that day.

The Butterfield Stage runs in town if you want to take a ride in a stage coach.  Buy your ticket at the Butterfield Stage ticket  office...

 ...and hop aboard for a short ride around town.

There are lots of little shops selling souvenirs for you to take home.

The Good Enough Mine offers mine tours,

and the Historic Cochise County Courthouse is also a museum.

My favorite activity, however, was the visit to the Boot Hill Cemetery on the edge of town.  More than any of the re-enactments in old Tombstone, a visit to Boot Hill is a lesson in the character and difficulties of living in the old west.  Among the citizens buried here are judges and marshals, outlaws, Indians, and Chinese.  The victims of crime and the criminals are buried near one another.  Suicides, murders and illnesses removed Tombstones residents from the town and place them there in Boot Hill.  A sampling of the residents gives testimony to the nature of life here in the 1880s.

The victims of the OK Corral shootout are all buried together.

John Heath, a man who planned a robbery in the nearby town of Bisbee, was hauled out of the jail and hanged from a telegraph pole just west of the courthouse.  His gang was hanged together 17 days later on a single gallows after having been convicted of killing several people during the robbery.  Justice was swift in Tombstone. 

For a complete picture of the Boot Hill cemetery go to the Boot Hill Graveyard website.  There you will find a list of the residents of Boot HIll and how they died.  People like Geo. Johnson, hanged by mistake after he innocently bought a stolen horse and suffered the consequences.

"Here lies George Johnson, 

Hanged by mistake, 1882.

He was right, 

we was wrong, 

but we strung him up 

and now he's gone."

Or Lester Moore

Lester Moore

"Here lies Lester Moore,

Four slugs from a .44,

No Les, no more."

Moore was a Wells Fargo agent at Naco and had a dispute with a man over a package.

Both died. 

or Johnnie Wilson

"Johnnie Wilson Shot by King"

Two gunmen's discussion of the fastest way to draw, ended here.

One of the surprises in the cemetery is a the Jewish Graveyard and Memorial.  There are no marked graves here but a very nice memorial has been erected "Dedicated to the Jewish Pioneers and Their Indian Friends".

The Jewish Memorial

A most interesting place to visit is Boot Hill Cemetery.  You can almost feel the tension of the "town too tough to die."

         -Kent

Scouting Tombstone and Shooting

We decided to take a short trip to Tombstone and scout for our trip there next week.  We drove 12 of the 13ish miles from St David and I turned onto Arizona Highway 82 on a tip from a fellow traveler.  Very shortly down the road we came to the Tombstone Livery and pulled in.  Tombstone Livery is a campground and a shooting range.  I stopped and talked to one of the fellows there and found out it is for "cowboy shooters" only.  Now while it might sound like you are using your range hands for target practice, cowboy shooting is really a style of shooting and in many instances cowboy shooters adopt an entire wild west persona with a western name and outfit and of course six guns and rifles only, with maybe a derringer or two thrown in for excitement.

Nationwide the cowboy shooting craze has grown greatly and there are cowboy shooting clubs almost anywhere you go.  Typically they have meetings and shooting contest and competitions with other clubs. It is a subculture all it own and very exciting and interesting to those hooked on old west history and culture. Interested in finding more info?  Try http://www.cascity.com/ or google cowboy action shooting or ask a gun club or store near you.

There are hours in addition to the weekend hours shown.
Go to the website for a full schedule.

Well, since I am not a "cowboy shooter" I was politely asked to mosey on, which we did after the kind cowboy told where I could find a regular shooting range.  We drove another 13 miles south of Tombstone to Arizona Highway 90, turned west and found the Sierra Vista Shooting Range.  After driving the 1.25 miles of hard trail (seriously washboarded dirt road), we came to the range.  Two volunteers were there to run the range and were very helpful.  They even opened the range 15 minutes early for me.  I spent nearly two hours happily sending bullets downrange and even met a guy who let me shoot his .50cal black powder rifle.  Not as much kick as I thought but what a hoot!

We headed back and stopped to take a picture of the entrance to Boot Hill Cemetery.  What else is in there with the cemetery?  Well I'm not sure, but I really can't wait to go there next week and find out.








On the way back we passed through a Border Patrol check point.  Does anyone else wonder what use these are since the people who are trying to avoid being caught are well aware of where these checkpoints are.  Seems to me there should be a better way.
          -Kent