May 15, 2007 - Greensburg, KS Tornado

I wrote earlier in the week about a man I met when I first arrived in Greensburg. His name is Ken Graham, lead project manager for a company called Philips and Jordan. Ken came here to find work for his company. When I first met Ken, he was a bit surprised that I came here with this expensive equipment to help out for free. But I think as we have had a chance to room together for a few nights, he has seen what I have done for this community, and he realizes that I’m really here to help.

Today, instead of Ken doing his daily routine of meeting with local officials such as the mayor, public works director, the county commissioner or the city administrator, Ken walked around the city block-by-block looking for people who needed help. I asked him over breakfast this morning if he could help me find people who needed help.

And sure enough he found somebody! Ken came up to me around noon and asked me to come meet the pastor of the Greensburg Baptist Church. He explained they had no money or insurance but they wanted to clean up the lot to erect a tent in anticipation for the first church service since the tornado struck.

Ken and I walked about 5 blocks to where the church used to be. I met a man who introduced himself as Wes Carlton. He was an older man wearing overalls, a baseball cap with an American flag and carrying a cane. You could tell the church was huge and the pile of rubble was enormous. There were bibles and hymnals thrown everywhere. It was obvious this was the largest church in Greensburg, and it would mean a lot to the community to have a place to pray sooner rather than later.

The job needed to be done so I decided to start immediately. This was by far one of the largest buildings I had ever demoed but one scoop at a time I began to dig away at the debris. It was amazing to see how fast the crane was working. Everything was flying through air – church pews, children’s puppets, a library, an alter and finally a picture of Jesus.

At the same time I was working, I could not help but notice out of the corner of my eye was Ken Graham, this stranger I met just a few days earlier, lead guy for one of the largest disaster recovery companies in the country, wearing a hard hat, safety vest and digging through the rubble with shovel in hand.

Moments later he pulled a sign from a pile that said “Greensburg Baptist Church”. Ken held it over his head for a brief moment for me to see, then walked it over to Pastor Carlson and proudly handed him the sign for his church. I think in some small way today represents that Greensburg Baptist Church is not gone – only the building is gone. The church is still alive and well. I don’t know why working with Ken today left such an impression on me. I think it may have been the fact that instead of Ken meeting with the governor of Kansas to talk about a business deal, he chose to help this small-town church get back on its feet again. Later that day, Ken put on some gloves and worked with five kids to erect a large tent in preparation for the Sunday service.