Praise God we are HOME!!!!

Thanks so much to all of you for your prayers through this very difficult time!! We definitely needed them! So much has happened in the past week...

Update on our family: My house is fine. We have electricity and water. We are being instructed to limit showers/baths and toilet flushing until the wastewater situation is not critical anymore. We do not have electricity parish-wide yet, but most people seem to have it. Also, miraculously my parents did NOT sustain any water damage to their home. According to my brother-in-law the water was up to their door. A tree did fall on their roof, but it DID NOT penetrate the roof to cause water damage. PRAISE GOD!!! Here are a few pictures...


This is my home boarded up. Please excuse the weeds. {blush}


This is our fence that was damaged.


Our neighbor's tree that came within a foot of our house.


Debris from our yard. We were so blessed! Many homes had trees fall on them!


The view up my street. Most people have already cleaned up their yards. Imagine what it must have looked like before cleanup? My brother-in-law said that this part of my street was impassable!

The scariest thing about all of this is not being able to communicate. Our cell phones do not work at all. Our regular phones are unpredictable. We cannot dial long distance. Our parish is occupied by the National Guard right now, so it's kind of strange. We are under a 10:00 curfew until further notice. Wal-Mart is only allowing a few people in at a time and my dad was there earlier and said that there were National Guard inside walking around with M16's. I guess that's to prevent looting. That just freaks me out. There is also a pretty steady sound of helicopters overhead. We are a predominantly middle class suburb of New Orleans only about 30 minutes away across the Mississippi River. It blows me away to think that just right over the bridge there is so much devastation…

School is expected to start back up sometime next week. We are expecting an influx of kids from Metairie and New Orleans. I was thinking today that maybe that is a blessing. New Orleans schools are not known for being very good - low funding and large class size spells trouble. Our parish has one of the best school systems in the state. Maybe this disaster will actually turn into a partial blessing so that they can get a good education and be removed from schools where gangs were rampant. I guess I am just trying to find some good in all of this mess…

Did you all see the Oprah Winfrey special on New Orleans? One of our local channels (who was displaced to Baton Rouge due to the studio being destroyed) aired it yesterday. I cannot tell you how many times I cried. These are places we have been so many times…I still am in a state of shock.

BUT, through all of this I know that the hand of God is moving. My faith will not waiver. My hope is secure. I do not understand why all of this has happened, but I do know that my God is still faithful and can carry our area through this tragedy. Please continue to pray for our area, Mississippi, and even our President. There are some tough decisions to be made, and finger pointing is not the answer. I will update as often as I can. Again, thanks so much to all of you - we can feel your prayers! {lots of hugs}