That morning we had, last minute, called 3 of the kids friends (a brother and 2 sisters) and invited them to spend the night. We met their family at a local restaurant for lunch and then the kids came to our house to play and spend the night.
The weather was stormy all afternoon. (We remember seeing the flags on the lightposts in our neighborhood and seeing the wind was tearing them up.) The kids played around the house, R kept an eye on the news (weather news), and I took care of this and that around the house. Tornado sirens went off a few times but they were always for another part of our county. The friends' parents called to see if the sirens were scaring the kids but I told them they just kept playing and were fine. As I was sitting at the table getting a scholastic order ready to put on the computer, my mom called me and told me the news said people in our town needed to be in their safe places. I assured her that R was keeping an eye on things but thanked her for the call. I finished the math I was doing on the book order, stacked them neatly on the table, and decided to listen to my mom and grabbed some games for the kids to play while we sat in the hallway. (I even had the stray thought that if a tornado came, the book orders would be out the window, but I didn't think anything of it. Like I said - it was a stray thought.)
I told the kids to come to the hallway. They asked if there was a tornado and I told them, "No - we're just going to play games in the hallway." The lights flickered and then went out. The boy needed to use the restroom. I thought, well I have a candle in my bathroom and the bathroom is a "safe place", so I went to our bathroom to grab a candle for him. While I was walking out of the bathroom and through our bedroom, my ears started popping. Meanwhile R had been outside watching the rain. It was falling like normal but, in a split second, started going sideways. He knew it was time to go. When he came running inside telling the kids to get down, they knew it was serious. When I was coming out of the bathroom, he was in the hallway telling me I needed to get in there. We both hit our knees as the tornado hit. (The 7 kids were in between us with R on one side of the hall and me on the other.) It happened so fast I really didn't comprehend what was happening. I heard glass break and smelled pine needles (a pine branch flew through my daughter's window). I got nervous (and so did the kids) when I heard the glass break but R calmly told us "It's okay, we lost a window, no big deal." and it really calmed me down. The door to that bedroom flew open but R reached up and snatched it shut really quickly. I saw the looks of terror on two of the faces of our little friends and knew we needed to do something so we began singing "Jesus Loves Me". I didn't realize how loud the noise was but it must have been loud because, when we were done singing, I felt like I'd been hollering at a football game. The tornado was done before we finished one verse of the song. It couldn't have lasted more than 10 seconds. We made sure everyone was okay and prayed a prayer of thanks. R then went out to check things out and stuck his head back in the hall to tell us "We've been hit by a tornado." Panic set in for some of the kids and we realized that none of the kids were wearing shoes but we had a house full of glass. (Note from experience - wear your shoes when you're going in your safe place for a tornado siren.) While we looked for shoes, R turned off the gas that was spewing from the side of our house and went to check on neighbors. Meanwhile, our neighbor came to check on us and we found some shoes for the kids. (My oldest ended up with slippers, the 2nd resorted to dress shoes, and the 3rd ended up with 2 left crocs - one hers and one her sisters that was the same size & color. Our minds were a bit flustered at the time - I was anxious to be done finding shoes and see what happened.) :)
I called our friends to let them know everyone was fine but they needed to come get the kids. God gave us an amazing peace - I told my friends "We've been hit by a little tornado but we're all fine. I don't think the kids will be able to spend the night though, so I think you'll need to come pick them up." :) I then called my mom and dad to let them know we did get hit but we were fine. Both our friends and my parents were at our house in no time. I started calling my in-laws to let them know we were fine also and also a few other friends who I knew would be worried. I also got lots of phone calls from sweet friends and had a friend post to our local homeschool group so they would know we're all fine. (The house was a bit of a mess but we were all fine.)
God truly put His arms around us. We didn't experience anxiety - just tried to digest what had just happened but really and truly were so thankful that we were all fine that we weren't upset looking at the stuff. It was an instant priority check and God was just so amazingly present!
About the time our friends and my parents arrived, some friends from church who live a few blocks away arrived. I'll never forget the look on her face - she'd been running all the way and had such a look of concern on her face. Her family arrived shortly after her.
The help that arrived was amazing. We didn't know what all to do. Our friends took all the kids home with them. (We didn't want anyone getting hurt on the debris.) A funny moment - the boy was standing on a pile of dirt by a tree in our backyard that had been uprooted. His dad told him to get out of the dirt - then mentioned that he didn't guess it'd mess the house up too badly at that point. :) My dad got plywood to cover over broken windows. Some more church friends showed up with suitcases and coolers to help us load up somethings to take for the evening.
We ended up spending that night at my parents' house.
That's enough for the 1st tornado installment. I'll write more in another post. It was just an amazing time of seeing God at work!
A picture of our dining room/living room after a tornado came through it.
The back of our house.
The side of our house.
The front of our house. (We were in the hallway on the other side of the house. God had protected us and there was very little damage on the side of the house we were in. It's like He had His hand cupped over us protecting us. I told a friend that a few days after the tornado and she said another friend whose house had been hit said the very same thing. God is so good!) :)
1 comment:
Still amazes me how awful and devastating this was to your family and always a GREAT reminder of how awesome our God is and how HE takes care of us! Thanks for sharing with us!
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