In Greensburg

Good news and bad news:

First, the bad news: We’ve lost our place at the Friends Church in Haviland next week.
The good news: We’ve located a place to stay, thanks to the help of June Boettcher, the wonderful secretary at the church where we’ve stayed this week while we were working on our Greensburg project.

We knew there was a busload of volunteers from Texas who would be staying at the church next week. June thought there would be enough room for both groups. Turns out, though, that there will be more than expected in the Texas group. And since I’ve said from the beginning that we didn’t want to take up any space that could accommodate a volunteer to help rebuild Greensburg, we agreed to move.

We tried several of our connections in Haviland, Greensburg and Mullinville. So did June and Louise Reimer, site coordinator at the United Methodist Church Recovery Office housed at Haviland United Methodist Church. All available spaces are filled. We were just about to check out a lead in Kinsley, 26 miles from Greensburg, when June had one more thought.

She dashed out to her car and down the street to Barclay College, which is affiliated with her church. She was back in a few minutes with an offer. We could stay in Jackson Hall, one of the classroom buildings on the campus. We quickly said yes.

More bad news: We won’t have a kitchen. More good news: We’re only a block from the showers at the gym. And our new temporary home is adjacent to the Barclay student union, which has a snack bar that’s open at noon and in the evening each day. We can eat out if we get tired of our peanut butter sandwiches.

Aren’t small towns great?

June Boettcher, secretary for the Friends Church in Haviland.