Done at Elmore City

Oklahoma is a tough place to live.  We know it is located in “Tornado Alley” but they also have floods, ice storms, and wildfires that can all do a lot of damage.  They have so many of these natural disasters, and so frequently, that the residents have created a lot of helpful organizations to assist their neighbors. 

In our previous posting, we mentioned some of the flooding here last summer.  Some more details can be seen at https://weather.com/news/news/flooding-severe-weather-plains-midwest-mid-june-2016-impacts

The statewide conference of Methodist churches has their own disaster support group (see http://oklahomaunitedmethodistchurchdisasterresponse.org/ ) complete with their own fulltime staff, trucks, and trailers to work with the local area victims and to keep us volunteers supplied with some tools and most materials.  They have been working in a number of towns near here since the flooding happened, and the Nomads have been here since mid-February.  Our team was made up of couples from Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, as well as Oklahoma, most of whom we had not worked with in the past.  Our family of friends continues to grow.  We completed the last 2 homes in the town of Mayville.  Our team leaders, Dennis and Nancy, have their own blog and posted a lot of pictures of the work we’ve accomplished (see http://dennisandnanccy.blogspot.com/ ).  Beginning next week, the Nomads will be parking at the county fairgrounds in Lawton and continue working there for another 5 weeks.

We will not be going to Lawton.  Instead we are going to take some time off to rest and recuperate.  While on Nomads projects, we work hard.  The last 2 days of this project, both of us spent most of the time on our hands and knees, laying carpeting.  After working projects since November, we welcome some time off!  We have scheduled a couple of weeks at different Corps of Engineers campgrounds, still in Oklahoma.  We will move slowly northward, following the pollen and dandelions.