I Lift Up My Eyes to the Hills...: "Joplin Day #2"

What a blessing to wake up to another day of God's amazing grace. I am so thankful I have been allowed the chance to drive to Joplin with our youth group to serve the Joplin community again. We reported to AmeriCorps and received our assignments. One team went to help clean a man's farm that was devastated by the tornadoes and had no insurance to cover his loss. The other groups were sent out all over town to spray paint the tops of fire hydrants. We were each given maps that had the colors we were to paint the hydrants. I never knew different color hydrants represented the pressure amount. We have students from 7th through 12th grade participating and it's a blessing watching them serve others. When we arrived back to our youth building I had received a message on my blog from Jenny (someone from Joplin that I have never met) with this comment from yesterday's post: As a resident of Joplin I want to thank you so very much for coming to help in the clean up. While you may not feel like you did much by cleaning up those lots you have no idea how much you really did. It means so much to those of us who are residents in this town! We very very much appreciate your help. What a blessing you have been to us to come and help us clean up the mess that even after a year is still there. We have made great progress but it was a huge mess and it will take many years to completely clean up so thank you for coming for two summers to help us out! Thank you Jenny for lifting our spirits and for taking the time to encourage our group. Your message will be read to all the students in the morning.