Day 25

Whew. The days are flying by, now that I’m back to work. After getting up at 630 am, working until lunch, then coming home and working on the house until dark, I’m exhausted by bedtime and don’t have the energy to write.

The last couple of days we’ve been sweating and praying as we watched Rita work her way west. We don’t wish the storm on anyone, but I can’t imagine what would happen if she would hit here. Noone would be able to secure for the storm, because we have trees and debris all over our yards and so many houses (those that survived) have been weakened structurally. I’m praying that the Lord would just dissipate Rita before she hits anywhere, or that she would hit the least populated area. Can you imagine Houston being hit like we were? What would that do to our country? I wonder, through all of this, what does that Lord want us to learn? Have we, as a nation, not realized that some things are just outside of our control, have we not recognized His sovereignty and our need for Him? It took famine, occupation, and captivity, to name a few, for Israel to realize their sin and turn back to the Lord. What will it take for our nation?

It’s nice to have the kids back. Well, two of the three, since Heather is at college.

Daniel has been helping out at the house, along with a couple of his friends. For the most part, they do a great job. Daniel and Matthew bailed swamp water out of plastic bins I had in the garage. The smell was quite awful. Unfortunately, one of the bins contained some Christmas decorations. I was able to salvage a few things, however. Daniel has installed insulation in the entire downstairs and Matthew has helped his dad (Rocky) hang dry wall. Jon is in the process of mudding and taping. We have our bedroom and Jonny’s room almost ready for painting. There are so many details to worry about that makes the job bigger. All of the floorboards had to be ripped out and will have to be replaced. The metal stripping on the corners of walls had to be snipped, removed and replaced. Door frames had to be removed, and if I can clean them up and repaint them, they will then be replaced. We’ll have to buy all new interior doors since they all cracked and warped. Jon and I visited Home Depot and purchased a new fridge and stove. They should be delivered on October 7^th. We still have to visit the cabinet store and the floor store.

We received some stuffed toys in the mail today for the kids. A church in my hometown blessed them and sent them to us, along with some books for Jonny. My girl friend, Laura, also sent some books for Jonny. He’s been quite excited to receive the gifts in the mail. Thank you so much. Please continue to pray for the children dealing with the loss of their homes, their belongings, and their stability. Pray that the Lord would give them an extra measure of grace and would help them deal with the questions that even adults don’t have answers to.

God bless you as you pray for those in the path of Rita.
(Did you notice she has the same letters as those found in Katrina?)

Grace & Peace