Colorado Weather and Mission's End

        This morning we woke up to 34 degree temperatures and snow! In the week we have been here, it has gone from sunshine and 90 degrees to this, and it is supposed to be 80 tomorrow. While this may seem unusual to some, it is Colorado weather, and those of us who have lived here joke early and often about about its changeability. It can snow in any month of the year, although it usually snows only in the very high mountains during the summer. The wind can blow until there is no tomorrow, and it often will freeze one day, have summer the next, and then rain with hail the next. Colorado is a place where one dresses in layers and never ranges too far from a raincoat or jacket.


        We finished our mission work today. On Monday, we walked into a home with sheet rock walls, untrimmed windows, outdoor plumbing, open doorways, and everything encased in plastic. While it had come a long way from the destruction of the flood, there was a lot of work which needed to be done for this house to become a home. While Michael and Ken worked on the ceilings, Marsha, Kathleen, and I painted walls. Michael plumbed a bathroom and hung doors, while Ken, Michael, and Kathleen trimmed windows and doors. I ran the vacuum and filled in where needed. When we walked out of the house today, the windows were trimmed, there was a working bathroom downstairs, the dust had been cleared away, the painting was done and the plastic was nowhere to be found. There is still much work to do, but much has been done.

 The other teams reported similar results. We can leave with a feeling of accomplishment because our labors of the week have helped four different families and businesses have a new chance on life. An elderly grandmother has a new paint job in her home. A historic business did not make it to a weekend opening, but it is very close. A farmer has a new fence so he can once again begin to run stock on his land.

Mission work is different in many ways. It is hard, because there is an urge to try to do more than one can do. It is also physical, because when a mission team goes into a place, it is usually to restore normalcy, and that takes work. There are no weather breaks, because there is just no time for such things. But there is another side to the coin, for the people we help give back to us in ways which are never anticipated. Sure, there are often physical gifts, but there are the things which have no price. So we leave here with a sense of a job well done, and even if this particular team of people never come together again, we are a band of brothers and sisters who have spent a week doing something special.

Vacation begins tomorrow, and I am ready. We have not really stopped moving since we left California on August 31. My sister has already made a massage appointment for me, and Monday will bring some relief.

Let the rest and relaxation begin....

One Flood....and Then Another

         As we enter into the last day of work here, one of the groups completed their assignment, my group has just about finished what we have set out to do, and the other two will hand off work to another team of Californians who will arrive on Saturday to continue the work. As an aside, still a third team of Californians will be here the week following, so the work will keep on until the winter snows come. It is supposed to snow a bit tonight, but these are not the winter snows...they are the reminder of more to come and the herald of Indian summer....it is supposed to be 80 on Saturday!

          I mentioned before that the home where we have been working was destroyed in a previous flood, the tragic flood of July 1976. What made that flood so tragic was that it came in the middle of the tourist season and 144 lives were lost. There was no warning as a flash flood came ripping down the Big Thompson Canyon, and many of the dead were tourists whose campers and tents fell before the rushing waters. Mrs. Hanson, the homeowner we are helping, said the flood was over and gone in 45 minutes, leaving carnage in its wake. It had rained a great deal up on the mountain, and in classic flash flood fashion, the rain-swollen river destroyed an area which had received no rain.

         The flood of 2013 was very different. It began raining on September 9, and it finally stopped on on the 12th. The rains covered a wide area and while the rivers rose rapidly, all of the rivers that drain the northern part of what is known as the Front Range overflowed their banks. Rivers merged together, combining their power, and soon everything was devastated. As I said in my earlier post, the Platte River, the river which received all of this rain, was over two miles wide in some places. Rainfall in a 72 hour period exceeded 24 inches....in an area with a seasonal normal of 15.

         Mrs. Hanson told us that while their house sustained damage in the 1976 flood, the recovery was easier, mostly because the speed of the flood kept the water, and its accompanying silt load from standing in the house. The rushing water rearranged the furniture and did some damage, but nothing like the damage of the standing water which filled their house for weeks after the flood. She showed us another picture, a picture of over a foot of mud on the living room floor---that is what did the damage. There was no mud in '76 and they were back in their home in about three months.

         I am glad the other teams are on their way out here because they are needed...and will be needed for a long time to come. I pray that through the loving work flowing into this area, that Mr. and Mrs. Hanson can celebrate Thanksgiving with their family in the first floor dining room of their home!

       

Out of the Chaos

 They say a picture is worth ten thousand words, and this is what an elderly couple saw when they were allowed to return to their home in late September of 2013. The lower floor of the house was in shambles, with  the water line at five feet above the floor. Over a foot of silt covered the floor and filled every nook and cranny. Their truck was upside down in a grove of trees about fifty yards from the house, and their yard was also covered with nearly two feet of silt. Boulders from up river were scattered in their yard, and their propane tank was long gone.


They spent several months in an apartment in town before the road was repaired and they could begin to live in the upper story of their home. Because they had no flood insurance, recovery was going to be slow and they were qualified for help from faith based organizations such as United Methodist Committee on Relief and the UM Volunteers in Mission. Throughout the summer, teams of people from all over the United States have come into this place to clean it up and once again make it livable. Today, the painting was complete; all of the masking tape came down, the beams were washed and the dust cleaned away. The downstairs bathroom works and trimming of the windows has begun. There is much to do, but it is beginning to look like a home.

People sometimes ask me why I go on mission trips. They want to know why I am willing to pay money to travel halfway across the country to work my tail off. This is why. To sit and listen to the stories of lives turned upside down and then share the joy of them coming back together again. To learn about folks who I have come to help and have them give me more than I ever dreamed. To hear the stories of the other workers, especially those who have never done this before, and see the miracle of giving and receiving come true in their lives...to walk away at the end of the trip having received the unexpected gift and being forever changed...that is why I go on mission trips!

Restoring History

        We awakened this morning to rain, rain on the first anniversary of a lot of rain, but by the time we had finished breakfast and were ready to work, the rain had mostly stopped. There were some rearrangements to the teams, but we dispersed to the same four places. By noon, we had done all we could do at the home on the river, so our team moved a few miles down the road to the Historic River Forks Bed and Breakfast to aid the team already there in their efforts to have the "bed" part of the inn open by Saturday.

        The River Forks has a great website which describes the history of the place, and it is special. It is an old log building, first constructed in 1905 which sits at the forks of the Big Thompson and Little Thompson Rivers. It has gone through many changes and survived the 1976 flood (I will also talk about this flood later) relatively intact, but it was not so lucky in 2013. The bar and restaurant were totally destroyed, as was everything else on the ground floor. Three feet of water filled the building as both forks of the river spilled over their banks. History oozed out of the log structure, even as we worked to modernize and clean up the interior. The jury is still out as to whether or not they will be able to partially open on Friday night, but we are doing our best.

       The team is beginning to mesh together, to get to know one another and to share our stories, for like the people we are helping, the team members also have stories, and the often these stories come surprisingly close together as relationships form. Some of the most interesting stories are coming from the team of men who are building the fences. Urban people from California don't often have a working relationship with building barbed wire fences as the cows look on, but this group is learning the skill! Their stories are funny and inspiring as they learn and work together.

        During evening devotions tonight, George created new words to the song "Somebody Touched Me" when he sang, "While we were working, somebody touched me." I think I can honestly say that each and every one of us has been touched, both by the people with whom we are working and the God who called us to this work....And it is only Tuesday!

Mountains, Floods, and Other Things

         As I mentioned last time, we are now on a mission trip to eastern Colorado, and while most of us arrived on Saturday, the work began today. There are some important things to know when you come from the coast of California to work in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. First and foremost, there is no air up here! Even though I was raised in Colorado, I have been gone for 40 years, and the old lungs ain't what they used to be! Many of my teammates are suffering from the same adjustments: shortness of breath, headaches, wobbly knees, exhaustion. To help just a bit, we went sight-seeing yesterday, both to see the area and to get a tiny bit adjusted. While part of the sight-seeing involved looking at the areas of damage, another part was looking at the splendor that is Rocky Mountain National Park.I will talk more about the park sometime in the future, but suffice it to say that at the main visitor center, which is located at 11,700 feet, there is REALLY no air there!

        The reason we are here has to do with a weather catastrophe...on September 9, 2013, it began to rain in the foothills, Twenty-four inches of rain fell in three days in a land which sees normally 15-18 inches in a season. The Little Thompson River which normally runs at 30 cubic feet per second hit somewhere around 50,000 cfs before the flow meter washed away! A small creek near Berthoud, Colorado, which has a normal flow of 15 cfs came in at 15,000. Six people were killed, 17,494 homes damaged, 1500 homes destroyed, and 11,700 people evacuated from their homes. There is much work to be done.

         This morning, we divided into four teams and headed out to get some of that work done. The first team headed out toward Greeley to do drywall work and painting on a house located so far from the river as to not be considered on the flood plain. Of course, the river was two miles wide (normally 200 yards) at the time of the flood. The second group headed to Berthoud to begin repairs on about a mile of agricultural fence...one of the team members spoke of farm equipment buried in silt and steel fence posts set in concrete which had been yanked out of the ground, concrete and all. A third group went to a small resort in the town of Drake, a small resort which had not brought any income to the family for one year. Electrical work, painting, drywall, and other tasks will hopefully bring the resort partially to life before the winter snows. The final group went to a home between Loveland and Drake to assist an elderly couple who had been living in their second story for a year. Painting and carpentry will help this family possibly be able to return to the first floor of their home soon.

           I was working in the fourth group, and it was heartbreaking to hear the 89 year old man fuss at his helplessness. This was the second time in the 40+ years he had lived in this house that there had been a flood. Before, he could help with the repairs, but this time he could not. Even so he was determined when he told us he expected to live at least 10 more years and die in the house he loved. Every one of the twenty-two people on this trip has a story, and I will relate some of them as I go, but in the meantime I have a new appreciation for those who paint houses!!

           In the meantime, I think I will spend time giving thanks for the blessings in my life, recognizing once again that all can be lost in the day of a storm.....