tablets of human hearts

Day 17 Part one

It’s morning as I write this. A dear friend from church, Deborah, has allowed me the use of her computer so I can email all of you. Thank you Deborah. We’ll spend another day of clean up today. I think I’ve done more loads of laundry than I have ever done. Thankfully, I’ve only had to throw a few articles of clothing away. I still have more to wash, though, because I want to make sure I get out all the mold spores that collected during the days the house was still boarded up.

I’ll continue this entry later tonight, but just wanted to let you know we are doing well, all things considered. Thank you for you continued support, thoughts and prayers.

I’ll try to get the rest of the week’s posts out Sunday or Monday.

God is our refuge in times of trials.

When we are weak, He is our strength.

Grace & Peace

Day 17 Part two

What is amazing and kind of sad to me is that it took a category five hurricane and a devastated coast to get us talking to our neighbors across the street. We’ve always been on waving terms (you know, waving across the street whenever we see each other) but now I stop by and say hi to Ethel each day, before starting to work on the house.

I’ll be reporting for work Monday morning. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing, but my command is very supportive of us trying to get our lives back together.

Rocky and Nette came over to help today. Nette helped me clean Jonny’s toys while Rocky helped Jon and Bob pull out more sheet rock. I was close to tears when they had to pull out our garden tub so they could get to the sheet rock and wet insulation. I knew we were going to have a lot of work to do, but when they pulled out the tub, it kind of underscored the fact. I was close to tears again when Jon’s Sante Fe was towed away. The guy who towed it away was also willing to come back to tow away Heather’s Elantra. Maybe he knows someone who can actually clean it (the smell inside is horrible) and fix it. If so, great, at least we’re not being charged for towing and disposal.

Tomorrow, a working crew is supposed to come from the base to cut trees and clean up our yard. It looks like a war zone. Ironically enough, I used to complain that there was too much shade in our yard and we were unable to grow grass. The trees that shaded the yard have either snapped or fallen over.

Blessings

Grace & Peace

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

Day 15

Jon and Bob reported for work today. Staci dropped me off at the house so I could start working. She planned on checking out what was going on at her work and then joining me; I didn’t see her again until 630 pm, when I finally got back to her house. She was put to work at the pharmacy as soon as she showed up. Jon and Bob ended up staying at work until 3 pm. So I was left alone at the house. I knew it would be hard, but didn’t realize how lonely and how overwhelming. Walking through the house, with all the carpet pulled out and about two feet of dry wall missing on the lower half of almost all my walls, with piles of stuff to clean or sort, mud on the bathroom floors and in the bathtubs, cabinets that need to be yanked out, I just didn’t know where to begin. If asked right now what we need, I’d say help. There is just so much to do and everyone is in the same situation, cleaning up their own messes or just getting by day to day because they have to start all over again.

I spent most of the day out on the back patio with a bucket of Clorox bleach and a bucket of water, scrubbing all the plates, bowls, pots and pans that were submerged in swamp water. I also dumped out Daniel and Jonny’s school work that I had been saving since preschool. Its amazing the stench that swamp water soaked school work makes. Thankfully Heather’s school work stayed above water level. I did manage to salvage my china cabinet and hutch and five book cases. Unfortunately all my books on the lower shelves suffered the same fate as Jonny’s books. I thought it rather ironic that all my home decorating/interior decorating books happened to be on those lower shelves, just when I need them the most.

Jon and Bob showed up around 4 pm, but by that time, there wasn’t much daylight to get a lot accomplished. They’re going to try to get off earlier tomorrow. We stopped by my Commanding Officer’s house on the way back to Bob’s.  He had four feet of water in his house. He has managed to pull just about everything out of the house, but hasn’t started removing drywall. Seeing his home just emphasized the need of how much help people need. The military is coordinating teams of workers to assist in clean up, it just takes time to get organized. Especially when so many have suffered the same fate.

Please continue to pray for us. We need to go back to San Antonio and bring Heather back this weekend, since her college starts Monday. We just haven’t decided when to bring the other kids back. In some ways, it easier for them to stay where they are, but we would also like them home to help with the clean up and healing of our communities.

God bless.

Grace & Peace

Day 14

This morning Jon and I got up and drove over to the house before church. Tears were streaming down my face as soon as we started driving over there. The neighborhood is scarred almost beyond recognition. I cannot believe how many trees have been blown over or snapped like toothpicks. Diamondhead once was filled with tall stately pines, palms and oaks. Now, the medium dividing the main road is piled with cut up trees and branches higher than the top of the van. The next street we turned down was lined with water sogged furniture, rugs, books, sheetrock, insulation, clothes and all the personal items that make up a home. Tears rolled down my face at the thought of all the homes ruined in side when the flood of swamp water and ocean surged through the rooms and halls, into every crevice, every drawer, every closet. And these were the homes that are repairable. We passed the streets were water rose twelve feet and higher, enough to make the homes unrepairable. It’s hard to describe what it was like going to our home. Like so many, we had water sogged stuff piled along side the street. We walked through the house and I looked at the mold growing on damp walls, cabinets and furniture. My bathroom floors are covered with a thick layer of silt. My floors are mostly cement, where Jon and Bob ripped up the carpeting, my walls are filled with holes along the baseboards where Jon tried to get air inside to begin drying them. I could just go on and on.

We went to church. Thankfully the building was still standing, sustaining no damage. I cried as I hugged people, it seemed like a lifetime had passed since I last saw them. Yes, I started hearing stories, as I knew I would. Of the mother who left her husband and two year old daughter at home, to work at the medical center during the storm. Only to return to a home that was no longer there, and to find that her husband and daughter perished in the storm. Of the two young families who have completely lost their homes and are living with their parents. The young girl whose father started worrying about the storm and left Diamondhead to stay with friends in Ocean Springs (because it was further away from the storm). They ended up spending the duration of the storm in the attic, when twenty foot storm surge flooded the house. Thankfully and ironically, when they returned to their home, it sustained very little damage. I know there are stories of hope and blessings, but right now, there is a lot of grief and loss.

We spent the rest of the day working on our home. It’s going to take a long time to make it livable again. Right now, we’re still just pulling out wet stuff, trying to salvage what can be salvaged, and trying to find places to put our salvageable stuff, since most of our furniture is in the junk heap.

As I looked at the scarred, battered and broken landscape, I wondered if this is what our soul looks like to God, because of the affects of sin. Sometimes God just has to come in and rip out all the stained and ruined parts of our lives, so he can rebuild and restore us, new, clean and in his image. As I sorted through the mess of what was left of our home, I found things I wanted to cling to, thinking maybe I could just clean it up a little. We tend to do the same thing in our lives, not wanting to let go of sin scarred habits, behaviors and character. “Let I go” Our precious Lord says. “Let it go, so that I might restore you to new. If you do not let it go, it will only be a stench in your life, a monument of past sin.”

Let it go, for He will redeem.

Only by the strength He provides

Grace & Peace

Day 13

We arrived in Mississippi after dark, so I was unable to see the destruction and devastation in increasing measure.  Rather, I arrived in a shroud of darkness, knowing that tomorrow I will wake to see the changed world so many have been living in for the past two weeks.

We left San Antonio around 10 am.  The van started acting up again between San Antonio and Houston.  It does seem to be a fuel problem, because Jon dumped some fuel stuff in the tank and after we filled back up again with gas, it seemed to run fine.

Houston was a mess to drive through, with all the traffic, construction and pouring down rain.  Once we got out of Houston, the rest of the drive was pretty quick and smooth.

Around Baton Rouge, we started to see some of the snapped trees in increasing number as we drove east.

Jon and I drove straight to our house, since Jon had a token of appreciation to deliver to our neighbors for their hospitality when Jon and Bob were conducting damage control on our house.  As we drove into Diamondhead, the tears started.  The normally busy and bright entrance to Diamondhead was dark.  The entrance road was covered in broken trees.  My tears flowed more as we drove down Analii and saw entire households, people’s lives, memories and comforts, piled out on the side of the road.   The piles were huge.  The only homes that did not have piles in the front were homes that looked like the owners had not come back yet.  My heart was breaking for the pain and suffering each of our neighbors were going through.  We stopped in front of my house, but I did not go in, since it was dark and after curfew.  I just looked at the pile of our stuff laying along side the road.  I chose not to look too closely.  We chatted with our neighbors for a few minutes.  They only had a couple of inches in their house, however the power was still out.

We spent the night at Staci and Bob’s.  They have electricity (AIR CONDITIONING) and water, but not cable or internet access.  Tomorrow, we’ll get up, and if time permits, stop by the house before going to church.  Then Rocky and Matthew are supposed to come over with Jon and Bob to help finish ripping out carpet and kicking holes in our wall.

Some impressions that I thought interesting:  There’s Humvees with national guard soldiers driving through our neighborhood, along with the occasional helicopter.  Jon and Bob like to share their stories of the stench from the spoiled meat in the freezers and fridges when they cleaned it out.  Staci and I truly appreciate the men taking care of that for Staci and me.  Jon has also speculated that my cedar chest actually exploded from the water pressure building up from within.

Grace & Peace