Day 16

This morning I hoped to be able to email out my daily logs. Unfortunately I was not, however, I made arrangements with someone from church to use their internet tomorrow morning.

Driving over to the house this morning, I took a different route around the flooded area of Diamondhead. More tears. It was obvious that a torrent of water just surged through the homes and washed out the windows. My heart was breaking for those who lost so much. We heard the story of someone who swam out of his house and was able to kick in the second story window of a neighbor’s house to get out of the flood waters. Amazing.

Jon and Bob took half a day off today and we were able to get a lot accomplished. After I emptied all the lower kitchen cabinets and salvaged the knobs, they ripped them out along with the drywall and wet insulation. It was obvious from the height of the mildew and mold, along with the wet insulation, that it was something that definitely needed to be done. I was able to find the cabinet company that made our cabinets, so we can have the same ones replaced and match the upper cabinets.

I was also able to salvage our entertainment center and dinette set. Every little bit helps. It seems therapeutic to clean up a piece of furniture and realize that we can still use it. I am so thankful. When I was dumping stuff in our trash pile, I saw the garbage bag full of the things from my cedar chest. I plugged my nose and rummaged through it. I pulled out some of my journals and even though they were damp, I could turn the pages and read most of the entries. So I placed them out in the sun to dry. Maybe. Unfortunately my yearbooks, cruisebooks and highschool photo albums were beyond saving. Photo chemicals do not fair well in water.

Today was Staci’s birthday, so we celebrated with steaks on the grill (Diamondhead supermarket opened today – yeah!) and a cake.

We’re all pretty exhausted.

We have so many blessings; each and every one of you included. I just pray that the Lord will be able to use me as a blessing in the lives of others.

God bless

Grace & Peace