I guess I don't have this Missouri weather thing figured out.
I thought the worst weather was in the spring. Tornados, rain, hail, microbursts...
Microbursts? What are those? asked the Alaskan girl.
This photograph was taken on Saturday around 3:30 pm.
NOT the kind of blue sky you want to see in the midwest.
This kind of blue sky means trouble. Weathery trouble. Apparently, microbursty trouble.
Sunday morning brought what the elderly on the street we cleaned up "hurricane"-type weather.
A hurricane in a land-locked state? Go figure.
Go to your Bing to Google (that's for you Girly) Microbursts. It is there.
So there you have it. Danger, Will Rogers, danger.
There is a story about when some pioneers were trapped in freezing winter conditions out on the plains. Brigham Young was the president of the Mormon church at the time. It was Sunday morning. The Saints were gathered for chuch. In a nutshell, he got up to the pulpit and said something along the lines..."our brothers and sisters are trapped out in the plains. This is our religion. Go and get them." End of meeting.
One of my favorite religious stories.
Just Saturday I was talking to Mr. Fun and he pointed out that while I do a lot of service, it is service for those truly in need. I never realized it. He is right. I am all about the need. And this street of folks in KC, have need.
Some of our best friends, Dave the Hot Rod Rock Star and his wife Carol, have had a long few weeks. Carol's father passed away about 6 weeks ago. And now her mother (the new widow) and her single sister had this microburst hit their houses Sunday morning. Broken windows, flooding basements, trees on live power lines. Sounds like need to me.
So Dave and Carol were off after our main meeting to help her family. So we were we. So was the C. family. So was Jack. So was our buddy, Tom, who of course just got out of surgery a month ago. Read all about him here: http://visitval.blogspot.com/2010/09/wanna-see-miracle-i-got-proof.html
It looks like someone just blended up leaves without a blender top on. Vegitation was sprayed everywhere.
We all worked hard.
We worked on Betty's home, Susie's home, the 88 year old man
Max across the street, Rose's house (which cracked me up--Rose is in her late 50's probably and really didn't work because she explained to us that she has "horrible" health--diabetes and high cholestrol--the irony of all that was she said it to Tom, who was raking her yard...the guy with the terminal cancer--
I learned a good lesson on perspective yesterday listening to all that)
We cut, raked, hauled and chain sawed.
We met the L family, the longest living
first members of the street (husband has a peg leg).
Dal, who lost her favorite tree in the backyard. A huge tree.
Teresa, who guessed we were Christian because we served all and didn't ask for money. :)
And we did the green shuttered house, even though that guy was recently evicted.
This picture below was interesting. The Mormons, as the neighbors were
calling us, were working on this tree. Notice the next picture,
what the family is doing...
They watched.
Look how sweaty Mr Fun is!
Dave and Jack, the man formally known as Bishop
The C Family
My favorite part of our story is that none
of these people we served are Mormon.
I love that we can all be so different,
believe so many different things,
and still serve and love each other.
We learned from Max that the key to long life is a cup of coffee,
some toast,
and three chocolate chip cookies each morning.
He asked us to please come back for a visit.
But of course Max.
And I will bring the cookies. :)
