Yesterday

It's difficult to put yesterday's course of events into a short update, so this may run a little long.

Our day started as usual for the most part. We woke up, ate breakfast and had our individual quiet time. Chug gave us a short teaching followed by a devo from Ethan. Then, we did something we hadn't yet done. Chug and Karen asked us to spend some time in collective prayer followed by a nap. I honestly felt like "Wow! These kids are getting off easy when there's a bunch of work to do." I had no idea how much they would need that rest later.

We drove to Dupree (our lodge is about 15 minutes outside of town) and began working as we had done the day before. We split into teams and each team tackled specific tasks. One did an oil change on a bus, another cleaned windows, another sorted shoes, and another finished building a fence. We decided to take on an unplanned project of removing an old patio slab and pouring a new one and building a small deck.

At one point we were concerned that while breaking-up a slab of concrete we may have broken a gas line because we could smell gas. We checked everywhere and couldn't find a leak in the ground, but we still kept smelling gas. At the same time, we began to notice two large storms coming straight towards us, but we didn't think much of it... until the Sheriff hand-delivered a tornado warning with shelter instructions. At that same time we discovered the gas was coming from a leak next door.

We filled up the gas tanks and loaded up the kids. We didn't have far to travel to our shelter in the county courthouse, but we wanted to be ready to go. We drove around the block to get a better view of the storm, and rather quickly we needed to get to the courthouse.

We spent several hours in the courthouse. It was a great opportunity to serve the people who live here and have lots to lose. There are so many incredible things that happened while in the shelter, but one of the most amazing was watching the tornado(s) jump over our building. Even though the roof was ripped off the 3rd floor, we were in awe of the divine protection. Since the roof was gone we had to deal with flooding in the building. That forced us to seek overnight shelter in the high school. The students were given cots and blankets for bed and MRE's for dinner.

It was a long day, and my update doesn't do it justice. Please continue to pray for the people in and around Dupree. There are many communities that were hit by the tornados. The last report I've heard is 13-19 of them hit the county last night.

One last thing... Praise the Lord!