The long day is over

To say the least, this, my first Easter away from family, will be one I do not forget (save possibly if I get old and senile at some point, but I digress).

The weekend kicked off well for me with a thoughtful Good Friday service, followed by a packed Saturday of lunch with my mentor, hiking at Mt. Magazine with Will and Rachel, making dinner for my team and attending Easter Vigil at my church.

It was during the celebration after the conclusion of Easter Vigil that I mentally planned out how Easter Sunday would go for me. Rachel and I would wake up and break our Lenten fast with a breakfast of pancakes, followed by a potluck, Easter egg hunt, and Sunday service at her church. That would then be followed by a lunch with some community friends, which in turn would be followed by dinner at a couple from my church’s home.

The day seemed to be going seamlessly when we were relaxing at our lunch destination and one of our hosts entered, announcing that DPM, a major meat processing plant and significant supplier of jobs in Booneville, was burning to the ground. My immediate reaction was, “You’re kidding,” in the shocked way that one assumes such a random and horrific truth cannot be so. He was not kidding. I later witnessed this myself when I walked outside and observed a big billowing cloud of grey-black smoke rising east of town.

My perfectly planned Easter promptly ended.

The primary concern was the large amounts of ammonia used for refrigeration that, due to the fire, were now leaking into the air.

In the hours immediately following, I called our dinner hosts and debated whether or not it was safe to stay in Booneville. Airing on the side of caution my team and I packed some Easter leftovers and a change of clothes and headed west, on the way calling my family to ensure they would hear the news from me first and not a local news channel.

All that said, I am now typing this reflection from my own bed in our house, back in Booneville. And I am very grateful that I will be sleeping in my own bed tonight.

But the part that makes this topic worthy of my reflection is that the future of Booneville has been on my mind. Though the air is safe, the economic future of this town may very well not be. Employing anywhere from 400-800 (depending on the source) individuals, DPM/Cargill by far provided the most jobs in this community. I can easily name a handful of people I know personally directly affected by this. The plant is gone, useless.

As a volunteer living in this community precisely to help it, especially knowing I will be spending an extra three months here, I find myself grasping for ways I could offset the devastation that will ripple through Booneville as a result of this great loss. But I am coming up empty handed, feeling useless. One of the only things I know that I can do is to continue with what I have been doing and keep my eyes and ears open for other opportunities.

The only other thing I know that I can do is ask for prayers … for a community full of people who woke up this morning celebrating the day that is central to our faith and go to bed tonight wondering how the day’s events will impact their lives.