Flood Update & Pictures

What a week this has been! While we have gotten a lot accomplished, there is still so much to be done. Wednesday, we had a crew of 5 guys come up from Knoxville, IA, who attend the church we used to pastor. They were SUCH A BLESSING! They stayed all day long and helped us gut out our grandparents' basement, and cleaned out our basement as well! They worked SO hard and we are sooo appreciative. We could have never got that much done in one day! We also cleaned out our back garage - we lost just about everything that was back there. But we were so fortunate compared to many other people!

Our house was a wreck, which was hard to see since it was so beautiful before. The hardwood floors and carpet were ruined and the basement was full of mud. It was a mess. The crew from Knoxville helped us clean so much of that out.

At my grandparents', we had to take out the ceiling tiles, take out the sheetrock, disassemble some kitchen cabinets, a countertop w/ sink, and a toilet. That was quite a job - but we had a lot of fun! :-) We were all so dirty! The sad part about this day was that I forgot my camera!! Agh! Sorry - no pictures from that day.

But I do have some pictures of the flood. Now, keep in mind that these pictures were taken almost a week after the flood had hit (last Saturday & Sunday), so the waters are extremely low. I don't want you looking at them, thinking "This is the flood that was supposedly so bad??"! If you have seen pictures on the news, etc., you know how bad it was.

This is actually the river, which was still flooded a bit.

The flood waters created these holes in this alley next to my grandparents' house

This is just the beginning of my grandparents' growing junk pile


Pitching in at grandpa and grandma's house

I found this among my grandparents' things - I thought it fit us where we are at

The waters washed out part of this basement

I thought this was SO weird! This is a pet store called "The Floodzone" - how coincidental!

These pictures don't do it justice. I'm not trying to make it sound like more than it really was, but the destruction was so bad - people are hurting and homeless, there are those who don't have anything, and there are those, like us, who were able to save almost everything, but their house is such a wreck. Many have decided to just sell their houses because they are so sick of it.

In answer to a question asked in a comment, we will not be returning to our house. Actually, we had our house up for sale when the flood hit, so now we have just completely moved out. We already had a house lined up to rent, so we have moved into that. It's a blessing that we had somewhere to go! Continue to pray - we still have work that needs to be done on our house and at my grandparents', and we are trying to make this new house a home at the same time.

It's so good to know that throughout all of this, GOD IS STILL GOD!

Flooding....

Hello to all of my blogging buddies! Sorry this won't be a real exciting post, but I just wanted to update you a little bit. We had a wonderful week during Holiness Camp, but Mom and Dad had to leave Monday because we got word our house was going to be flooded and we had to evacuate. So, they rushed back home to clean out our basement, while Deanna, Nikki, and I stayed there to do the youth services for Dad. So, in a nutshell, our house was majorly flooded (got all the way to the main floor), and our town was flooded so badly, it looked like a war zone. Our grandparents and aunt and uncle were also affected by this flood - all of us live a few blocks from the river.

The water has receded a lot so far, but this entire area has been really affected - in fact, many of you have probably seen coverage on TV and such - it's made national news. It's been pretty devastating for many many people - our family was fortunate because we didn't lose very much - there were many people who lost everything.

So, basically, sorry that I haven't been keeping up on your blogs and posting on mine! Where we are staying does not have internet, so I have to come to our church in order to check mail and look at blogs. We don't know when we will get internet again, so please bear with me. I have many many pictures of the flood and from Holiness Camp that I will post as soon as possible.

So, please keep us and all of Iowa in your prayers! Iowa has been hit hard this last month with tornados and floods. Our family has a huge task ahead of us because we have to clean our house out, so please keep us in your prayers!

Even in the midst of all of this, we are still praising God for protecting us and for how much we were able to salvage. We truly are very fortunate! I would like to end this post with a verse of a song we sang in church this morning that so fits our situation! It's the third verse of "The Solid Rock":

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay!

(Chorus)
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your prayers!! We are so grateful to everyone who helped us move out of our house, who helped sandbag, and whatever else they may have done. It is so greatly appreciated! Like I said, hopefully pictures of the flood and Holiness Camp will be up soon.

Deanna's Graduation - Part 3

This should be the last segment of Deanna's graduation pictures - her open house! It was a wonderful graduation party! We had yummy sloppy joes, potato salad, chips, mints and cashews, and delicious cake! Enjoy these pictures!

Deanna's gift from Aunt Delaine that she made

A beautiful afghan Deanna got from a friend in Minnesota


Dad was in charge of the slideshow that we put together of pictures of Deanna's life

Final touches on the decorations

Do you see any resemblance?

Nikki and Deanna

Deanna and I - I forgot to take my jacket off - whoops!


So we had to retake it, but I was acting goofy

Rachel, Deanna, Nikki, and I

Rachel and Deanna

A goofy picture

Deanna with her proud parents

Deanna and Aunt Delaine

Deanna with her beautiful roses she got from Mom and Dad

Deanna with Pastor and Carmel

Delaine acting goofy

The official cake lady!

Carmel was a wonderful server

People looking at the display table

My absolutely ADORABLE second cousin!!! She is SO cute!

Sophie Marie!

I'm not quite sure what's going on here....

A carrot cake Mom made especially for Deanna - it's her favorite!

Deanna and her proud mama

Deanna and I with some friends of ours, Cassie and Mallory - we were so excited to see them!

Deanna in the midst of all of her balloons!

I just love this picture of Deanna and Dad!

Goodness, that was a lot of pictures! :-D

Right now, we are at Holiness Camp (I just love this scheduling thing...) having a great time, I'm sure! :-) This Sunday, Dad will be in Davenport, Iowa doing a pulpit supply, so please continue to keep us in your prayers! I will have pictures from camp up soon!