Tuscaloosa, Alabama Getting Dirty For Jesus

We arrived in Tuscaloosa, AL on Tues. and the first thing we did was go get registered to volunteer to help with tornado rebuilding efforts. We met the group who was here, and they happened to be from a Disciples of Christ church in West Des Moines. What a coincidence. It was fun to get to know them while doing some great mission work for Tuscaloosa.

We worked Wed. and Thurs. I had to borrow some work jeans from my brother-in-law,Buddy, and I did break them in for him. I also borrowed a white work shirt from my sister. We were working in red mud and the work clothes will now have permanent red stains, but here in Alabama, that's OK.

The first day we helped a group of Menonites who were building a pretty big house in one of the areas worst hit by the tornado last spring.

My sister is a very active member of the Disciples of Christ church here so that's why we hooked up with them.

Water on an Iowa vehicle.

One job we helped with was putting up insulation in the ceiling of the basement of the bigger house. Here's Bob hauling some of the insulation down to the basement.

Here are some workers working inside the smaller house across the street.


This is the bigger house.

This is the smaller house.

Here we are putting up the insulation. We needed to wear safety goggles and masks to protect us.


Another job we helped with was to scrape the styrofoam insulation off the siding that had been donated. For reasons I didn't fully understand, the siding with the insulation was too wide for this particular house, and so we had to scape off the insulation so it would all fit together.

We also had to bag the styrofoam so it didn't litter the area.



Here is the group who came this week to help out. They are mostly from the Disciples of Christ church in West Des Moines.
While in this area, which was the hardest hit area, we hiked around to see if we could see my niece's house which is now being rebuilt after having lost it in the tornado last spring. We were not successful, but we did get some interesting photo ops.

We found this needle point which had the first and last verses in the Bible.
Kathy also found a Craftsman ratchet wrench, guaranteed for life, which she gave to Buddy, her husband.
Here are some views that show the ravage of the tornado.



This is a church that survived the tornado that cause damage all over the area, but spared the church. Notice the destruction in the background.



This relief truck is parked by the church.
The area next to the church used to be a trailer court, but not any more. The plan is to clear the area and build a park for this community with ball fields and everything. While we were there clearing some of the area, we met one of the architects who will be planning and designing the park. He and his business partner were there right after the tornado helping people and with clean up.
We added to this pile of debris in this area.








What was I doing? Taking pictures. Oh, I also helped do the clearing. Bob was in his element, cutting down small trees and cutting back bushes. We made a dent, but there's still lots of work to be done.