In the midst of the storm... Joplin is.

I hate the the reason I will awake my writing from a solemn slumber is the scream of a storm that decimated my college town, a place I called home until Saturday afternoon. Joplin has never been a place I was fond of and now my mind will think of nowhere else. It is this storm that opened my eyes to her beauty. I stand humbled at the feet of this town of people that I know and love.

Saturday afternoon was sunny and humid. I walked outside of the gym at Ozark Christian College in my graduation robe to look for my boyfriend and my dad. Smiles. Smiles that lasted until that night when I left Joplin for the last time to move up to Kansas City until I leave for Arizona. Smiles that lasted until Sunday night when my best friend called me in tears. Her words will forever haunt me as I sat in Kansas City trying to picture what she was seeing. She didn't know where she was, it was unrecognizable. She sat in her car a block away from where the tornado ripped through the middle of town. I slept only a few hours and then drove the 2 hours back down to town. About 5 miles outside the city, debris began to appear on the side of the highway. Pieces of metal and insulation.... shoes, plastic bags, rubble. I dropped off medical supplies, water and some dry food at the local university that is currently functioning as a Red Cross shelter and went to my old church where I was dispatched with a group of volunteers that I knew from town. We went to the middle of the damaged area to check on a family. As we got closer to the middle of it all, cars littered the roads, sheets of metal were wrapped around trees, plywood and pieces of homes were by the side of the road where only businesses had stood. The hospital looked as though a bomb had exploded, no windows were left. The busiest road in town had been flattened, and signs from the stores could be found wrapped around trees in adjacent neighborhoods.

We stood in the rain on the top of the hill of 17th street looking out over Rangeline. All of us were residents of Joplin at one time or another, and we said very little. Repeated over and over was that we couldn't believe that we didn't recognize our own city. We had to count the streets to know which numbered road we were standing on. Orange X's were painted on every house to decode that the Fire Department had excavated this area- letting people know if anyone was found in the house. We walked silent through the street, smelling the gas lines. I watched a little boy step and jump across a pile of broken boards and pipes that used to be his house. He picked up a book too water damaged to read, and set it back in the rubble. His parents limped across the debris, looking for salvageable pieces of their lives. I sat in the car as my friend received word that his friend had been confirmed dead. His heart broke, as did mine. The city itself shook with sobs for people who had gone missing. Story after story emerged of parents searching for their children, finding only a shoe and a rumor that perhaps he was at one of 50 area hospitals.

Yet, amidst the horror, I began to see life. As we approached where Walmart used to stand, a disheveled woman offered us water. It's unlikely she owned anything anymore, but she provided for us. I watched neighbors of people who had lost everything help them dig through rubble. They too had lost their homes. Every church we passed that was still standing had opened its doors as a shelter or a volunteer dispatch center. Locals took teams to check on every person they knew and family members dug out their own from the piles of what used to be their lives. For all of the years my friends have begged me to say something nice of Joplin, here it is. I have never seen a city disregard its own needs for the needs of the people around them like this. Never before have I seen such vibrant humanity emerge from the grave of destruction. I wondered if Joplin would ever recover. How do you stand back up from something like this? The answer:

Joplin never fell. 

She staggered, she stumbled, she was bruised and beaten, but Joplin stands. Joplin stands because the people of this place are leaning on each other. People with nothing are rescuing people with nothing. No one abandoned anyone. News anchors with no homes to return to worked late into the night broadcasting the story of their wounded town. Radio announcers with not even a change of clothes sat in the studios all day to do anything they could to re-connect families and direct bewildered listeners to help. Electrical repair teams came parading into town from Kansas City. Police cars from counties I had never heard of flooded into the city to help organize, search, rescue and maintain order. The National Guard brought order to our chaos. I watched as cars of people passing by on the highway stopped when they heard of the damage and began to transport injured residents to emergency triage centers. On scene weather announcers pulled people and pets from piles of rubble, staying out for hours in the rain. As I organized supplies in a distribution center in south Joplin I watched truck after truck of blue collar good ole' boys show up to help. Everyone found their voice on Sunday, May 22. Joplin in her tears has outshone the rubble in her town.

My brave little city, despite the death and the disaster, she has opened her heart. If there is a place where we will see the love of Jesus, it is in this little southwest Missouri town. The community of the Trinity lives here. The church has risen to meet the challenge of pain, and as panic returns to residents this evening as another storm rolls in, I am sick to my stomach. But the hope that Joplin has given to me I will give back to Joplin. You will stand. There will be a day when you will drive down the streets and snapped power lines will no longer lay across the road. Your schools will be mended, and textbooks removed from the grass outside. You will have a place to lay your head, and though your heart will still bleed for loved ones lost, you will learn to love again. So, do not give up dear Joplin, you are stronger than anyone thought. You have rebuked me with your courage and taken my bitter words away with your selflessness. I ask forgiveness at your dirty and bruised feet for the things I have spoken against you- in your hour of darkness, you have brought light by resurrecting your humanity. One day Joplin, I hope to be as brave and selfless as you have been.