Today I went to Charlene’s house, where we are working on a lot of different projects.  It is pretty cold in Joplin right now and some of the water isn’t working. There are walls and ceilings that need painting, cracks that need to be filled, leaky windows to be fixed. The furnace is not working and there are plenty of other projects to do. Charlene actually doesn’t even have her bed or any of her furniture in her house, and she is sleeping on the floor in front of the fireplace. Today we brought her a foam mattress pad to sleep on so that she would have a little bit more of a cushion. They recently put a new roof on the house and the ceiling had been leaking before. The house itself was most likely built in the 1920s, so there were a lot of cracks that I filled in today with spackle. The cracks are all over the walls and ceiling; most of my day was spent on the ladder. It is a long process to chip the loose paint off of the walls, remove nails, drilling and filling holes with plaster. My allergies have kind of been acting up today. This might be from breathing in so much dust from all of the renovations. Our goal for the week is to make the house comfortable for Charlene and we are hopefully going to move all of her possessions into it by Friday!

-Ally Rackley, Freshman
Spring Break Mission Trip to Joplin, MO