Suriving Tornado's

Many of you guys have been wondering and checking in on us as we had all the tornado's and storms come through here last night! So here is the update...

Obviously I'm sure you figured we are okay! Last night Clay was in the middle of "Refuge," Youth service as I was out in the hall with one of our students with health issues and a friend of ours came up and said the tornado's were about 20 miles away... hence how our night began to unravel!!! So of course yall know me I went straight to get our girls first things first and got them home ready to go with our Emergency Storm Shelter pre-packed bag...lol...(I got that bag stashed a couple weeks ago as I didn't want us to be running crazy trying to get all we would need for the girls together in the last few minutes pushing it too close to get to the shelter in time before the storms got too bad! We have been told April and May are the worst here for tornado's!) So as the girls and i ran --or should i say --I dragged Chastity by the hand hurrying her, as fast as those little feet could possibly go, and I lugged cherish like a sack of potatoes half falling off my side all the way across the parking lot in the piercing storm rain, Clay was dismissing the students and getting them all safely on their way home. With the exception of one girl-- we just took her with us to the shelter instead of home to be safe! Well, Daddy finally got home and with in just a few mins-- time enough for him to move my hibiscus tree under the patio-- lol you know we had to take care of all the important things!-- we got the WARNING for our city to take shelter immediately!
So across the street we went to a sweet couple in our church's storm shelter that they have so graciously offered to us anytime! --This Momma's peace of mind! And for the next hour or 2, I really wasn't keeping track of time but instead entertaining a worried 4 year old as golf ball size hail sounded like it was going to cave in the tin door! If you are wondering how Cherish was doing...well she was thinking someone was knocking to her or that it was music b/c she was laughing and clapping the whole time! LOL That's Cherish for us! Her carefree worryfree spirit helped calm Chas too! Finally it moved on passed us and in calling to check on my friend, we found out that her windows on her house were blown in and a tree up rooted in her front yard. So we quickly got out of the shelter between storms and took one of our students home that had went to the shelter with us, then over to our friends house so Clay could help board up their windows. (They were all safe as they were in a closet through it. Praise the LORD!)
Just after they finished up boarding up the windows they started to issue the next warning to take shelter again for the next one was about to hit. So we sped across a DARK city as there was no power ANYWHERE... not even Walmart! And God got us to the shelter just in time once again before the next one hit. This time our girls had fallen asleep so we just got them settled and ended up staying in shelter until about 4am. The weather kept telling us that we were to expect more storms through the night, so instead of moving sleeping babies back and forth we just stayed put safely. Well...My back couldn't take no more concrete floor and the girls were getting restless too by about 4... So we loaded up and came back home and camped out in our front room together and got a little rest!
Needless to say we had an eventful night and God held us in HIS arms and protected our family! Our church family has had a lot of small damage such as I mentioned above, but over all we were very blessed as it all could have been much much worst. Our cars got some dings...but for the safety of our family I'd gladly trade that anytime! So thanks for all your prayers... especially our parents! We know yall had a restless night too- worried... but it is just another example of God showing us His faithfulness and protection and that He isn't done with us yet! So we love you guys and hope yall have a great day as we are praying for a much needed nap today!
Thankfully in HIS hands (the best place to be),
Christi and family