Helen's House

Joplin's F5 tornado caused unimaginable destruction; calling for an unimaginable need for response.  Convoy of Hope was on the ground while the winds were still blowing and are STILL on the ground today. Over the last 15 months our Disaster Response department has taken each of our intern teams  out to be a part of our work there.  From setting up the warehouse, to assisting victims, to debris removal, to clean up, we've gotten to be a small part of the whole response, but our Summer 2012 interns got to be a part of the coolest part of this thing yet!

Convoy of Hope was blessed on the last episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition enabling us to be a part of the Joplin rebuild. They've not taken this task lightly, they've gone GREEN in the rebuild, the materials used are energy efficient to help out their new owners, and I'm told that the new homes are to be with able to withstand any storm of the future. The recipients of these new homes have been carefully and strategically chosen, starting first with uninsured elderly who somehow didn't qualify for any other assistance.  This whole process led us to Helen.


One year and some days after that terrible storm took Helen's home, the Convoy of Hope truck pulled into town again, but this time into her driveway.  85 year old Helen was displaced by that massive storm, her home gone, her things destroyed.  She's been couch surfing ever since, finally landing at a home with several other displaced victims. She met us at the door, "They've got dogs, kids, and they smoke! Let's get out of here!" She stopped short, furrowed her brow, placed her hands on her hips, "Where's the muscle?" (I had arrived with about a dozen girls, the men were in another vehicle, & hadn't arrived yet!) I assured, well, I tried to assure her, we were of some use too, but she didn't really ever buy it! The girls hauled out totes, mattresses, box springs, all sorts of big things, yet Helen didn't cheer until the "muscles" arrived a half hour later! I assure you the girls had it, you'll see the "muscle" standing around in this picture.

When all was loaded up we drove the short distance across town & pulled up to Helen's brand new house. It stands on the same plot of land where her previous home stood.  My little worker bees had her unloaded in no time flat.  She leaned in to hug us and began a tearful thank you and good bye. I said, "Oh we're not leaving!" (The interns had come to me as soon as they were done unloading boxes and requested to unpack for her.) Not only did they unpack for Helen they put together the brand new furniture donated from Ashley Furniture, the washed all of her dishes, and put together all her new kitchen appliances that had been donated! I think they would have put her drawers in her drawers if I had let them, but I coaxed them out there with a promise to feed them. Before we left, we prayed over Helen and her new home. What a blessing-to US that is! What a beautiful picture of what God can do when disaster strikes! He's the real muscle- able to clean up, to rebuild, to restore, to redeem!

Monumentous

  We'd been in Haiti about a week. We clunked along the national highway, dust flying everywhere.  My Old Navy t-shirt read "1994" at the bottom, the team teased, "That was the year before I was born! 2 years for me!!"  They giggled and cheered over the roar of the traffic.  Our box truck took a left turn; having been here before I knew we were entering the mass grave site, resting place to an unknown number of Haitian men, women, and children in unmarked graves.  In January of 2010, over 200,000 loved ones had to be hastily buried here, in some of the most undignified burials of all time, but what's an impoverished nation to do when in a matter of minutes, their world literally collapses around and on top of them?  It was an unprecedented occasion to say the least. Monumentous.


  The site, to be honest, it mostly looks like a field & contrary to popular belief you cannot still smell death in its midst, although for a long time you could. I bit my tongue as we parked.  I wanted to shout to the teens, "No laughing. No horseplay.  No talking. Step carefully. Show some respect for the dead!"  But there was no need, as the teenagers and twenty somethings filed off the back of the truck a somberness & silence fell over them without direction, without request.  A small bit of dignity was being given back to those souls whose bones lay beneath us that day.

While the gravesite is still unmarked, small memorials stand, but if you're imagining anything of monumental proportion well, you're likely overshooting.   In a country that is quite literally still digging out of the ashes, monuments do not take precedence over food, water, and basic healthcare. A shrine will have to wait for the orphans to find homes, for new gardens to grow, and for the wounded to heal some more. Those that are still moving forward are really the true monuments of this story.

 When I was here six months ago, a few thousand little wooden crosses stood to mark the area, however, today they're all tattered and worn and lay flat.   I noticed this pile of discarded crosses right at the foot of the hill.

It's a sad sight no matter, how you look at it, but something about where they were placed struck me.  It wasn't that the location was a graveyard, it was the bottom of the hill that got me. I guess all those messages about take up your cross and follow Jesus were not lost on me because an image of Christians carrying these little black crosses flashed through my mind.  As the scene unfolded, they would get to the bottom of the hill and think to themselves, "Making this climb will sure be easier without having to carry this cross," and then they'd lay down their cross and go about their way.


  I began to think of real people in my life, who at one time walked strong and hard with Lord, but not anymore.  I thought, THIS is what it looked like in the spiritual realm, they're walking along and they faced SOMETHING, a moral dilemma, an opportunity of some sort, an obstacle, a tragedy, heck, maybe they won they lottery for all I know, but whatever it was it was somehow incongruent with walking with Christ because the cross became cumbersome & didn't seem to fit into their lifestyle anymore so they laid it down! It was a monumentous occasion.

 They discarded it, they moved forward on their own; free of the painfully heavy cross, it's rough edges were pretty uncomfortable at times, all around just in their way, and it stuck out like a sore thumb so often, not to mention all the times it got in someone else's way and they had to hear about it; yes, it had grown to be offensive. When I thought about those real life people who once steadily followed after Christ and where they are today, I became painfully aware of the grave yard in which I was standing.
(The whole image was so overwhelming that I retreated to the back of the truck, tore open backpacks till I found someone's journal and tore out a blank page to write it all down!)

For a minute I felt defeated and almost began to imagine that I really could STILL smell death here! Then I looked up,  surrounding the mass gravesite, are beautiful mountains, Haitians still trudge onward, even at the sight you can hear the play of children, the sun shines high and bright over the Caribbean sea; the stench of death has been replaced by a faint whisper of hope.  The story remains unfinished for the island nation of Haiti; its truly monumentous days are ahead, may a shrine be built to those instead. The story remains unfinished for those discarded crosses too; (most of them anyway, some found death too quickly.)  I pray for you whose faces I recall with fondness, may you hear the whisper of hope and the shouts of love from Your Father and run to Him in response.  Like Haiti, may your Monumentous days be ahead of you and not behind!