Helping friends with the tornado tragedy in Joplin...

The past few days have been absolutely crazy. As I'm sure everyone already knows one of the deadliest tornados ever hit Joplin, MO on Sunday evening. My hometown, Greenfield, MO is exactly halfway in between Joplin and Springfield. Growing up we went to Joplin quite often. I do not have any personal friends or family that live in Joplin currently. Unfortunately, Shawn and I do have a friend that we both work with at University of Phoenix who's family was directly affected by this tragic storm. Our friends, Lauren and Mike, have family that live in Joplin. Mike's mom, brother, and grandfather were all hit by this deadly tornado. Thankfully, all of his family members made it and are okay. Shawn and I, as well as a few co-workers told Lauren immediately that we wanted to do anything and everything that we can to help Mike and his family.

This morning Lauren called me and told that they could use all of the help they could get because there was another storm coming in tonight, so today was all they had to salvage anything from the two different houses that were affected by their family. Shawn and I, as well as Jeremy and Chris (which are two of our co-workers) went to Joplin to help them with everything we could.

On the way to Joplin I said a lot of prayers. I was starting to get nervous because I knew that I had no idea what I was in for and what I was about to see. Driving into Joplin was an absolutely crazy experience. Getting to Mike's mom's house was a nightmare. There is absolutely nothing left in parts of this city. People who grew up in this city don't recognize it. Nothing can prepare a person to see anything like this. I hope that I never have to see anything like this ever again in my entire life.

There's not much left to Mike's mom's house. His grandpa's house was completely flattened. His grandpa was pulled out from underneath brick, and by the grace of God is going to be okay!

The one positive thing I can say is that the amount of volunteers and people helping was amazing. It was awesome to see such support. As we were digging through all of the rubble, numerous different times people would drive by and ask us if we needed any food or water. Not only are people working hard to salvage anything possible, but people are also working hard at supporting all of the families.

It was an honor to be able to help our friends during this absolutely awful time. There are many different ways for people to donate all sorts of items to the victims of this tragedy. Shawn and I hope to be able to give and help in any other ways that we can.

Everyone in Joplin needs lots of prayers. There is also a Zeta Tau Alpha sorority (my sorority) chapter in Joplin that has a lot of members that were affected by the tornado. I think a group of my sorority sisters from Springfield are going to go down next week and serve food to volunteers.

Below are some pictures and videos that I took today. It's a lot to take in...

Driving into Joplin.

Walkthrough of our friends mom's house.

Mike's grandpa's house.