We dig the whole day through...

  This past week was full of service to the people of Bad Neuenahr - Ahrweiler.  Words can't fully express the devastation that has happened in this area but I will try to share the things that Elder Heilmann was able to express of his experience there.  As for pictures he said,  it's "kind of offensive to take pictures of peoples tragedies. Mom."  He was able to write today (August 12th) as they are now back in Wiesbaden, (since last Sunday) and he said some missionaries did take pictures and I will include them here.  For a more in depth look, you can Google the town name to see pictures of the flooding and subsequent damage. 

  The Elders arrived on Sunday night, August 1st, and joined the other group of Elders, Sisters and emergency service members at the Youth Hostel.  He expressed that they were a very jolly group and fun to be around.  They were able to get settled in for the night before commencing in the morning on all the hard work that was to be done in the area. 

  Elder Heilmann said that traveling there was ok.  It was a 1 1/2 hour trip. They were bussed in which he was grateful for since he's getting kind of sick of trains because they make him nauseous. However, he does get to see castles and beautiful scenery so it makes it ok, it's just not his favorite.  What made the trip so fun was that they were on the Autobahn!  He is getting used to kilometers and other metric measurements and he let us know the speed limit is 120kph for the Missionaries which he thinks is so cool, but he doesn't have a car so he was just excited to say he has been on the Autobahn.  

  Monday morning, they got up and got to work! The Church's Helping Hands organization issued all the missionaries coveralls, reflective vests, and galoshes and the the locals took to saying, 

"Moin Moin en Minionen"

(Taken on 8/4/21)

Affectionately, they were saying Good Morning, Minions.  I can't say I blame them.  They DO look like a bunch of little Minions. ;) The people of the village really are so very grateful to have them there, truly.  Elder Heilmann said that everyone is giving them gifts to say thank you.  They have been gifted lots of wine chocolates and tea lemonade.  They just say...thanks!  ;)  They are gracious even though they won't consume them.  Elder Heilmann was offered coffee many times.  He had a great story to share about it: 

 "I got offered coffee like 30 times from the same person and I was saying in very clear German, 
'Nein danka ich trinkt kaffee nicht',  
and then he was like, 
'Coffee??'  

NO!  LOL I would be speaking in German to him and he would be like 

'Sorry ich can English nicht spreiken' kind of a thing, 

and I was like, 'I'm not speaking English!' 

'I'm not American!'  

'I know your not American, I'm speaking German!'"

    The area they were in was very close to Bavaria and Elder Heilmann said that listening to Bayerisch is like listening to English spoken with a Scottish accent.  He is pretty sure that the man who was offering the coffee spoke Bayerisch so Elder Heilmann's middle German was unintelligible to him.  He also said that the more South you go it's like Swiss German and he can't understand it all.  His trainer who is 21 and going home in December, can't understand Swiss Deutsch and he went to High School in Wiesbaden!! However, Elder Heilmann did state that his German has gone through the roof.  Being out in this little village really forces him to speak only German so thinking of words in English is getting harder.

  On Monday, August 2nd, the group started taking out dry wall day that was lain over the top of cement Legos.  The mans house was a wreck.  They had to use sledge hammers to get the dry wall and cement off since the water had completely soaked through.  

   This flood was unprecedented and totally unusual and swift.  The initial wave that swept through the town was 25 ft. high.  The ground was super dry so when the water came through it didn't get a chance to soak in.  It just suddenly rained and it was flash flood and then the water settled to 10 feet.  I don't know all the particulars about the flooding, only just what Elder Heilmann was able to tell me about his experiences there. He said that the inner part of the city is surrounded by the original castle walls from the middle ages and that most of it is still standing.  It did help some but not totally.  The devastation is just immense. 

  Their are just so many sad stories of things that happened there. It's actually one of the reasons why this blog has taken me so long to type. One man lost all of his children. Just him and his wife survived.  Most of his house was gone, his job was gone, just everything...but he made a cake and shared it with the people that came to help him clean up.  These people are just so very strong and humble.  His neighbor and his neighbors family were killed when their house collapsed on them.  I just cannot imagine the shock and pain and yet....he made cake. Such gratitude and humility.

   I asked Elder Heilmann what happened, did they have any warning??  He sighed and said, "There was a warning and they laughed.  They laughed and stayed ...and now their gone."  

    Speechless.

               (Elder Heilmann did not take this picture, so I don't know what this once was)

    Tuesday: Day 2, August 3rd, the group righted a big shed/tiny house and it took about 2.5 hours to shovel mud out and right the house.  After they accomplished that massive feat, they moved on to a  sports store to start taking up carpet.  Elder Heilmann was in a basement wearing a mask because it was toxic, pulling up all the carpet.  Then he said the thing that every mom wants to hear..."It was not structurally stable".  Then he followed it up with that no missionaries or their families were injured by the flood.  The Lord is truly looking after his servants, but I do hope he stays out of harms way in the future. 

    Day 3 rolled in on Wednesday, August 4th, and the group headed back to the sports store to finish up.  After that, they headed to the local hospital.  There they shoveled out mud and cleaned out cupboards and files in the hospital basement.  The shoveling went on forever and the mud was pudding thick and very smelly.  Elder Heilmann spotted a stairwell leading down into darkness. It was a sub-basement and it was completely flooded with water.  He said they didn't know if there were any people down there but their was no way to enter without getting a pump.  The bucket brigade method that they used for other materials just wouldn't work with the water. 

    Day 4 was Thursday, August 5th.  They ended up cleaning up a library.  They bucket brigaded stinky, moldy books out of the library to the dumping pile.  He was sad to see a really old, green bound, German copy of The Lord of the Rings completely destroyed. Elder Heilmann said the whole town just looks like a trash heap.  Right now it's more just moving things into piles to get to people and basic infrastructure.  

    

      The group kept themselves busy by singing English songs from artists like Abba and Elton John.  One of the women helping was a professional singer by trade and new how to sing in English, just not speak it, so she kept the music flowing and the spirits high as they trudged through the wreckage. 

                                                          (This pic was taken on Saturday)

    Overall he said it was just sad, hard, but fun.  He also said I am "having a good time but it's very sad, so I try not to think about it."  I think the comradery and the music really helped keep his mind off the tragedy and helped him flow in his work.  And they worked.  They worked all through the pouring rain- they just kept moving. 

    We ended our Thursday call after a local villager came to the group waiting for the bus ride back to the Youth Hostel with thank you notes from other locals.  She was exclaiming her gratitude for everyone who had come and wanted the Missionaries to tell their families that they had done good work.  I was feeling very proud of Elder Heilmann and it was a wonderful way to sign off for the week.  

    We have talked since then.  He was able to call my on my Birthday on the 10th and also again today, August 12th, but each time we talked since then, we just talked about what was happening around home and with family.  Elder Heilmann is clearly exhausted both mentally and physically and I think it is just going to take some time for him to find his groove again. And that's ok.  

    He did share some other fun tid-bits that I will share in a second post for this week.  But for now, out of reverence and respect for all that lost their lives and livelihoods, I will leave it at this.  

    Please pray for the people of Germany and for those who are helping them find their footing again.  And please, if you are warned of danger and are given an opportunity to save yourselves, just do it, even if nothing comes of it.  It could mean that you get to hug your family for one more day.