Kentucky: Unbridled Spirit

   Hi it's me again, your favorite of Alanna's kids, Kendra. A little while ago my dad, my brother and I had a unique opportunity to serve the people in Kentucky after the flooding there. This was a pretty cool experience and mom didn't want to forget it so she is having me write this. One disclaimer, I was a weird mix of sick, tired, and dehydrated during this whole event... It was not the most enjoyable experience due to this. So we drove down to Kentucky on August 22 and got there at around 11pm. The drive down was pretty chill, our car had Bentley, Dad, me, Brother Huff, and Brother Bowes (two guys in out ward). We arrived safely and set up our tent and went to bed for the night. 

The next morning I woke up to the sound of a train a 5am and stayed awake due to all the campers around us realizing they had forgotten to bring salt. (???) A pretty strange way to be awoken if you ask me. Me and the gang got up at around 6 and got ready for the day. Then we were given our group and went to our first assignment.     

Bentley and I

Keep in mind that this was at least 3 weeks after the flood, so everything was already cleaned up or smelled awful. We found a job to do involving taking out a guy's duct work so here are some photos of that... 

Me dragging away wet duct work

Brother Bowes after coming out from under the house 

He had a really sweet horse as well!!! 

More photos of us working for your viewing pleasure 

It was a mess under the house 

                   After we finished helping him out we moved on to the next project. Here are some of the photos I got along the way. They are not super high quality because I was taking them through a window while we drove but you get the idea.  

Here you can see a house that was over top of the creek bed.
I have no clue if that is where it was originally or if it was moved in the flood. 

Actually I am pretty sure this was because of a fire, but the flood didn't help. 

    At the next house they were clearing up some debris and removing the soaked insulation. I was sitting in the car because I did not feel super great and ended up falling asleep and did not get any photos. This house took the rest of the evening and the start of the next morning. 

    On the final day we finished up at that house and sang "I am a Child of God" with the owner. Then we went to a shop called God's Country Closet. From what I could tell they were a kind of thrift store/Goodwill. This meant that there was a ton of things that had been donated and ruined in the flood. It was very sad to see. All of these thing were in a back room and we had to get all of them out.  

Dad pulling a sled load of ruined donations. 

Under the word God you can see the water line. It was crazy to see just how high the water got 

A pile of things that had already been taken out. 

Here is the back room I mentioned earlier. 

A different perspective of the room. 

            

        We worked till about 1:30 and then stopped by a bathroom and drove out. It was a unique experience and I am glad to have gone. It did feel as though I had not help very much but my parents said that just being there for those people was enough. It is crazy to think that these kind of things happen around the world to people who are just going about their lives. I was glad I could help in some way. Also just as an explanation for the title, that is what it says on the welcome to Kentucky sign. I though it was fitting considering that these people had lost so much and were still going.