Into the Danger Zone

 On May 20, 2013, an EF5 tornado swept through the town of Moore, Oklahoma.  It was the third time in recent history that Moore had been completely leveled by a devastating tornado.  I was a senior in high school during the first time, and I have very vivid memories of our high school collecting prom gowns and graduation caps for high school students in Moore who had lost everything to the storms.  Consequently, when I sat one morning looking through news clips showing images of all of the devastation, something stirred inside of me.  I didn't know what me or my family could do to help, but I suddenly felt like we had to do something.  I pondered what we could do for the rest of the day coming up with ideas ranging from collecting toys, donating money, and even traveling to Oklahoma to help with the relief effort.  I didn't know what would be most feasible, but by the end of the day, I simply wanted to get into the car and go.  When Nick arrived home from work I shared my impulse with him, and to my surprise, he agreed.  He said he had been feeling like he wanted to go too.  The hair on my arms stood up as he made this statement.  "Well," I said, "when do we leave?"

Three days later, on May 31st, we loaded into the car and began the 14-hour drive to Oklahoma to join the Mormon Helping Hands Organization in clean-up and relief efforts.  Nick had a week of vacation during which we had originally planned to travel to Glacier National Park, but both of us knew inside that a vacation of another sort would be better for all of our family.  Little did we know; however, what we would be driving into that day.  As we entered the state of Kansas, we received a call from one of my brothers currently living about 25 minutes north of Moore.  He informed us that his office building had just closed down, and that another round of tornadoes, possibly worse than the previous ones, was headed into town.  Actually, it was following the very freeway that we were driving on!  We pulled up the news feed and watched radar images as we continued to drive.  An hour passed, and the storm crept closer towards town.  At this point, my other brother in Oklahoma phoned.  His office building was also being evacuated, and the storm was supposed to pass over both of my brothers homes within the next hour!!  As they both prepared to evacuate, we continued to fly down the freeway, unsure of what lay down the road.  

Both of our parents called while we were driving and told us to turn back, or to stop for the night, but the storm was moving away from us and we were still way out of range.  We were also fearful for our loved ones and wanted to be there to help as quickly as we could. We assured our parents and continued to drive on. While doing so, the kids listened in silence to the news feed carrying the voices of weatherman and storm chasers alike.  They thought of their cousins and we all said silent prayers.  In my heart I hoped and prayed that we weren't being summoned to Oklahoma by the spirit for a much more personal mission.  

The minutes passed like hours as the storm grew closer and closer.  Tornadoes were touching down everywhere, including a record setting twister that barreled through El Reno.  It was 2.6 miles long with winds of up to 200 miles per hour.  It cleared a 16 mile stretch of land, including cars that were parked on the freeway trying to evacuate but stuck in the crazy traffic.  This tornado would set a world record of the widest tornado in history, and after taking out El Reno, it was headed right for my home town, right for my family.  We all held our breath, but just as my brothers were loading into their cars, the tornado lifted and veered to the south.  Other families were now in danger, but mine were now safe.  They were home when we arrived later than night, and we were all grateful to get to spend the next few days together.  Grateful to be heading out to the zoo and the pizza place instead of shopping for emergency food and clothing.

For two days we visited and played,

and then my sister-in-law was kind enough to take my kids so that Nick and I could get down to work.  We had called before and been told to report to the Moore Stake Center to help.  So, bright and early Monday morning, we kissed the kids good-bye and set out for our first day of relief.

When we arrived on site, the gym looked pretty impressive.  We were disappointed though, to have just missed a crew that had set out. 

 

Furthermore, instead of sending us out, the director there said what he could really use was help tidying up the Stake Center.  In particular, the bathrooms really needed to be cleaned.  Both Nick and I looked at each other. Had we really driven 14 hours to clean the Stake Center bathrooms!  We were a bit taken aback, but didn't let on to the director.  Instead, we pulled on some work gloves and set out to clean.  It was humbling, to say the least, but we talked and laughed and were both determined to do whatever work that needed to be done.

With our cheerful attitudes, we had the bathrooms sparkling in under an hour, and much to our delight, a call came in and we were assigned with one other worker to go out and fill an on site work order.  An elderly blind man had a large tree that had fallen onto his home.  Our simple task was to use a chain saw to cut it into pieces and remove it from his home to the curb.  Nothing too heroic, but it was at least tornado related.  We were energized and ready to go.  We were not; however, ready for the onslaught of devastation that greeted us as we drove towards the home.

It was almost more than we could handle.  Down some streets there would be houses with minimal wind damage, and then the home next door would be simply gone.  There was garbage and debris everywhere and peoples belongings were left to rot in the rain and wind!  Our hearts broke in our chests. We felt grateful to be there to witness the hardships first hand, and grateful to be in a position to help in any way possible.  

As we pulled up to the house to begin our assigned project, we figured we could wrap it up in an hour or two and head back to headquarters for another job. 

 

Six hours later; however, we moved the last branch to the curb and collapsed in a sweaty, exhausted heap!  It was some of the hardest work I have done in my life.  And what I thought was doable in an hour or two took us all day!  We drove 14 hours to clean the Stake Center bathrooms and move one lousy tree!  It felt like a drop in the bucket of all of the relief work that needed to be done.  For the second time during the day I was humbled to the dust.  We had come thinking we could make a difference.  And I suppose to that one blind man, we made a big difference, but it was a different kind of difference than had I thought the day we left our home.  One by one.  That is how this work was to be done.  One tree, one person at a time.  It's why so many helping hands are needed for the work.

The next day, my sister-in-law had something come up so Nick and I ended up with the kids and unable to get down to the same kind of relief work we had accomplished on Monday.  Still, we had wanted to get the kids involved so we set about to see what we could all do together.  First, we took the kids down and drove them through the storm damage.  They were absolutely shocked.  Then we took them to the Stake Center and showed them all of the things our Church was doing to help others.  While we were there we asked if there was something the kids could do to help, aka pick up garbage or something.  The workers were kind, but for everyone's safety they preferred not to have children involved in any of the clean-up.

Okay, we said.  That's okay.  We had a plan B just in case this was the case.  While at church on Sunday I had collected bishop's numbers and our other idea was to locate some of the member families that had lost homes and see if we could take them shopping, or something of the like.  We called bishop after bishop, but the response was the same each time--everyone was already completely taken care of.  Other families had already pitched in.  Hotels were offering free rooms, restaurants were offering free meals.  Large companies like Nike were outfitting families, and furniture stores were giving away new furniture.  It was amazing.  We had such good intentions, yet we were totally unable to find someone we could help.  We felt at a little bit of a loss.  So far, all of our relief efforts had served to be more helpful to us--teaching and humbling us--then to anyone else we had come to help.  Still, I didn't want to leave until we found some tangible way to get the kids involved. 

Finally an idea came to into my mind.  Although our church didn't take donations, many of the other community churches did.  We could take our kids to the store and have them each think about what it was they would miss the most if something like this happened to us and our house was gone.  Then we would purchase one of each of these items and take it to one of the neighborhood churches.  The kids took this job very seriously, and they were thrilled when they each checked out with their donation.  Emma was especially pleased as she wheeled a new bike, identical to the one the Easter Bunny had brought her,

 out of the store.

After driving around for a minute, we found a church that a volunteer at Walmart had recommended we donate to.  We snapped this picture of the kids outside of the building,

and then the kids took their things inside and gave it to the workers.  The women volunteering inside were all moved to tears.  One of them was the minister's wife, and she asked if we would wait for a moment so that she could bring her husband in to meet us.  We agreed, and when he arrived we had a fabulous talk with him and his wife.  We explained how we had driven down from North Dakota to help, and told how the kids came to pick each item.  Then we talked a little about the church and the work we had been doing with the Mormon helping hands.  They were so impressed they asked to take our picture to show to their congregation the following Sunday. 

It was awesome, and such and incredible missionary experience.  This church, which would normally have not been so friendly to a family of Mormons, was asking to stand up in their church and share the story of our good works.  It was another moment of profound teaching for me.  Natural disasters are horrible, but they cause a coming together--of people, of nations, and of faiths.  I wish we could all come together without these kind of things, but I know better than to truly hope for that.  There always has to be some kind of "reset" button to get people to step back and do what's right.  And gratefully, the Lord is as aware of this as anyone.  That's why the saints have been commanded to be ready.  Ready for themselves, and ready to help others.  Then, through helping, lives are touched and souls are saved.

The rest of our time in Oklahoma passed quickly, and before we knew it we were back home again, safe and comfortable in our little rental house.  We were forever changed though.  Changed from viewing the destruction and seeing first hand how bad it really can be.  Changed by realizing how little we are in the scheme of things, and how many good people it really takes to recover.  And changed by coming to realize that the world is still full of good people and that if we let him, God always uses these trials and hard times to "give us experience" and to ultimately work together for our eternal good.  It was wonderful to be able to learn and grow, and wonderful to be able to help.  I hope we can continue to do so, and that if we ever find ourselves on the receiving end in a situation like this, that our faith is strong enough to sustain us and our hope in Christ real enough to give us peace.