You're Where?

I didn't think I would be In Iowa most of the day Sunday, but that's where it was at.

Many of you know about the flooding going on in Iowa right now. Well, several young ladies at Bethany Baptist Church here in Peoria grew up around Burlington Iowa, and still have families who farm out there near the Iowa and Mississippi rivers. Last week, most of those families completely moved out of their homes, and were later ordered to because of the risk of being flooded. Local residents spent three or four days building up the levees along the Iowa river with sand, tarps and sandbags, only to have it fail, and flood these farms with up to 10 feet of water. As the Mississippi keeps building, risk to farms just down the road is still high, so several folks from my Sunday School Class headed out Sunday afternoon to try to help in building up the levee along the Mississippi river.

Below are two pictures taken by one of these young ladies of her parent's farm. As you can see on the left, you normally can't see the Mississippi from here. But you do now (right).



Sorry for the poor pictures below. I couldn't find the camera before I left (I found it now though, don't worry Mom) so I used my phone. It would take weeks to get copies of the ones others took.

We are NOT supposed to be this close to the river, and it's not our fault!


There must have been over a hundred folks working in the areas we saw. There was a huge group filling sandbags at the church, and then groups like these (below) all along the levee we were working on. A station at one point of the levee would be a distribution center for bags dropped off by trucks. Then four wheelers would take loads of bags for up to a mile or two along the narrow levees to these groups securing the tarps down with them. We did this part along the levee for a few hours, and then went back to the church to make sandbags for another couple of hours.



You can't tell from the photo, but that is an 8-10 foot drop off to the left, so only four wheelers could haul sandbags along the levee.


This is Ben (in green). After Jesus, he's my hero. He helped guide us in the work we needed to do. It was his wife's parents farm that was one of the closest farms in danger.


Jeremy (left). His wife's parents farm was already under I believe.



Yes, it's me. I seldom get decent pictures of myself taken.


Here's most of the crew. We had some downtime if the four wheeler loads got backed up.

Even the British and Cat interns showed up to help. Iowa will take anybody.


Nicole had her game face on. You could tell she wasn't there to be entertained.


These ladies had tons of food ready back at the church for anyone who needed to take a break. Four wheelers were also making runs of their food along the levee, which was several miles from the church. I just think it's cool how they all got up this morning and did their hair the exact same way. What a coincidence!!!


I've teased my friends Sarah and Christin for three years that I really wanted to go see the church they grew up in. I didn't know I would finally see it on such a sad and serious occasion.