Joplin MO

Last Sunday after church, we traveled to Joplin MO to work with  I.D.E.S.  This is the second time I have gathered up a team to go assist in Joplin.  The majority of our group were homeschoolers, graduated homeschoolers or moms of homeschoolers.  OK, 99% of the group--we had one young adult along who was a public schooler.

This trip, we painted the exterior of a home--siding and trim, hung garage doors, painted a 3 bay garage, did some clean up, hung sheet rock, moved insulation and supplies, dug holes for deck footings, put up furrowing strips, helped put up window trim, checked for water leaks prior to an inspection and a lot more.  We had 18 in our group this time, consisting of 1 male adult, 5 adult women, and 12 older teens.  We had a great time, the kids learned some new construction skills, and found out we had some muscles we didn't know we had.

Of an evening, we came  back to the Westside Christian Church--the church that hosts us (it turns into a dorm for IDES volunteers during the week) to shower and eat.  After a wonderful nightly dinner, our routine was board games and bringing out the guitars, piano and violin.  One of our volunteers, Maggie, did the majority of the nightly cooking--we even had pork loin one night!!!