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Just finished second long day of work with the relief for the local tornado victims. As disasters go, it wasn't on the scale of some of the huge ones, but even a few destroyed houses and uprooted trees is kind of miserable. In some ways, this particular tornado situation is easier to cope with than hurricane damage, for example, because only a few houses in each community are affected, so there are lots of unaffected people to offer shelter, help with repairs, etc. Still, there's plenty of problems for the agencies (in my case, Red Cross) to deal with. Yesterday I helped families get into hotels and buy food for a few days; today I rode around with a team going door to door to be sure everyone was OK, and later helped feed the crews that were actually doing the dirty work of cutting the trees and putting tarps over roofs.

I get a little disillusioned by the chaos and wasted energy at the coordination sites, but realize that every disaster is a new script that has to be written while it's being performed, and that after I get more experience and don't have to wait for directions, I won't have to sit around so much. I'm amazed at how much I enjoy the company of the other volunteers, for the most part fairly different from me--rural church people, often. It's strange to find myself hanging out with the sheriffs and firemen and preachers' wives of the little country towns. There's a lot I might not like about them if we talked about politics and religion, but when I see how hard they work and how much love they put into it, how they stay cheerful and energetic with no food, sleep, shower, or family near by, I find them amazing.