Hurricane Irene came and went without much of a fuss. We were very lucky. The power only cut out for about 2 hours on Saturday night. I later found out we are in Zone 1 which is high priority since we are located between the jail and courthouse. Lucky us!
Saturday was very windy and rainy but not too much it wasn't until we hit the backside of the hurricane that we got more flooding. Because of the direction the wind was blowing much of the water from the sound was blown inland. It's slowly receding though.
The kids were suppose to start school on Thursday but because of mandatory evacuations on the Outer Banks they cancelled school Thursday and Friday. It was cancelled today as well since there are still many roads that are flooded. I guess we'll have to wait and see about tomorrow.
We did loose our big tree that the treehouse and rock climbing wall were on. So sad! It was in the wet part of the yard and the top of the tree was dead. I think the weight of the tree pulled it down as the ground became saturated with water plus the strong winds. Thankfully it fell back into the 404 so we can take our time cleaning it up after the area dries out. I'm guessing it'll probably take at least a month.
Yesterday since church was canceled, we had a small sacrament meeting in our home with a family that live in an adjoining neighborhood. I gave a short talk on service and then we changed and went out into the neighborhood to help others that had trees down in their yards. We helped about 8 other neighbors with cleanup and had 5-6 households out helping at the time. It was nice to enjoy serving our community with others that were not of our faith.
Serving our fellowman is so essential to our being disciples of Jesus Christ. We have had some tension in our neighborhood over the past year about some dredging proposals and it has left many with hard feelings. I was saddened to see some neighbors continue to harbor hard feelings and willingly help some neighbors but not all. It reminded me of the sermon on the mount in Matt 5: 44 & 46 when Christ tells us
"45... Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.
46. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?"
It gave me much food for thought so that even in our unusual Sunday activities I had spiritual food for thought.
3 comments:
Wow--looks like a mess even though you got off easy. That stinks about you losing your big tree! :/ Glad you all are safe and that you were able to help out your neighbors.
So sad about your treefort! It was Dave's inspiration for the treefort he wants to build Logan (if I have a say it won't happen until Logan can walk at least). But we're glad you guys are safe!
Mark printed off this post and shared it in testimony meeting last Sunday. He had originally planned on using it for his lesson in EQ, but felt strongly prompted to read it in Sacrament meeting. Thanks for sharing--I'm sure it has inspired lots of people!
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