We gathered together in church as usual this past Sunday morning to worship and give praise to our Father who watched over us. We prayed for Texas and the other areas hit by Hurricane Ike and continued with our service. The lights flickered on and off as we began the service but we focused on the four young men getting baptised. We moved on to sing worship to God when the power went completely out. We joyfully continued the service with the light streaming in from the narrow windows. The winds picked up stronger and as we poured out of the church after the final prayer, we saw some of the destruction that had already been brewing. Roofs speckled by missing shingles, signs missing and found down the road, siding wrapped around cars and poles... it was an eerie reminder of when the big tornado hit in January of 2000.

Thankfully, there were no major injuries, no deaths. But that afternoon 70% of Owensboro was without power and was considered in a state of emergency. Our emergency crew had already volunteered itself to help with the victims in Texas, leaving us to wait things out a little longer than usual.

It was an inconvenience for sure. We became concerned about rain flooding the homes with damaged roofs and the food in the refridgerators thawing far too quickly... but it was so neat to see neighbors checking on one another and helping to clean up the debris from the yards. The weather was perfect so we didn't worry about anyone freezing or melting. God was blessing us in the middle of it all.

Today, there are still homes without power but things are slowly coming back together. Our power was turned back on Monday evening but it was too late for the food in the fridge. We took this opportunity to empty it out completely and give it a good scrubbing. We also spent the two days cleaning up the yard of random shingles and tree limbs. Nothing major at our house - praise the Lord!

We did, however, have a limb break in our front yard from one of the huge maple trees...


It didn't break completely off, it just hung dangerously close to the street until a friend of ours that owns a tree service business was able to stop by and get it down today.


After snapping a few shots of the damage, I rounded the house and found a reminder that life is beautiful, tiny flowers that survived on my butterfly bush...


Mommy Moment: Jeremiah wanted to watch TV or play on his computer or just turn a light on and we kept trying to explain that the power was out and things that plugged in were not going to work for a while. John was outside when I was explaining it again and when he came back in, Jeremiah met him at the door and told him how the power was out and nothing was working. He went around the room pointing out the things that didn't work: "The TV doesn't have power, the lamp doesn't work, the other lamp doesn't work..." Then he picked up something else and told Daddy, "this camera doesn't work..." I thought it was cute since it runs on batteries! =) See, he really wants any excuse for me to not take his picture!