Nobody escapes a ‘storm’

Death, devastation and destruction, at some time or other, have been part of everyone’s life. When we have lost a family member or been through a terrifying storm, something has affected all our lives in some shape, form or fashion. Just this morning in church Bro. Benny preached his sermon on “The miracle of the storm.”

It made me think of a pair of Heavenerites who have experienced storms, so to speak. Mickey Wynn has been through no less than three hurricanes – Rita in 2005, Katrina in 2007 and Ike in 2008 -- while living in New Orleans and, most recently, David Hinds and his wife Linda, serving in Chile as missionaries, lived to tell about surviving the 8.8 earthquake (seventh most devastating quake in the world) in Chile just this past Saturday.

Although Kathy Bain Dunn beat me to it in another blog, here is David’s shortened account, as written in a blog, or his newsletter, “As I was sleeping Friday night in our fifth floor apartment, I heard the noise of things falling. I opened my eyes and felt the room shaking vigorously. The light on our bedroom ceiling shinning from our alarm clock read 3:34. I instantly realized what was happening and shouted to Linda, ‘It’s an earthquake, let’s get out of here!’ I headed immediately for the front door, all the time the shaking was becoming stronger. About the same time as we entered the hallway, the electricity went out leaving us in total darkness and the sound of falling debris was getting louder. Then the building began violently lurching back and forth. By feeling our way along the wall, we made it to the stairwell and found that the emergency lights in the stairwell had come on and we were able to see. We made our way down the five flights as fast as possible and soon were out in the street in front of the apartment building. The shaking started to lessen and after about a minute it had completely stopped. It was then that I noticed that I didn’t have any clothes on; just my shorts, no tee shirt, socks or shoes. Linda had had the presence of mind to grab a bathrobe, but she also did not have any socks or shoes on.”

To make a long blog short, David went on to say, “Our first thought was of a young missionary couple on our team who live in another high rise apartment only a few blocks away. They have two small children ages 4 and 2. After calming the children the six of us adults gathered around the (team leader, Trent) Tomlinson’s dinner table and prayed thanking God for His love and asking for His wisdom and inspiration for the days to come.”

Hardly comparable, that is nothing like the tornados we had while I was growing up in Heavener, when we had to go to Babcock’s storm cellar for safety. Nor not even close to the “small” earthquake I felt when we were vacationing at Disneyland one morning. The quake was off the coast of San Diego, but we still felt the trembling and ran out in the parking lot where it was a wide-open area.

Wynn, likewise, has survived three hurricanes, and in an email, discussing Rita, said, “We evacuated, going North thinking that we would find a place to stay. We had to go to Memphis to find a hotel room. After Katrina, we evacuated to Baton Rouge where my middle son was in college at LSU. No power for 13 more days. When we did get to go back home, we ran a portion of our house and refrigerator and freezer on a gas generator, primarily at night. The gasoline would last from dark until about 4:00 am, when I would refill it and run it until daylight. I felt like a primitive hunter, getting up every day trying to find water, ice and gasoline, and food in that order. I was so proud of myself, when I was able to bring home the supplies. It was almost like a great hunting day for a caveman.” I, of course, felt the aftermath of Ike as it blew over East Texas, causing heavy rains and plenty of damage. Again, nothing like Mickey has experienced.

The Lord does work in mysterious ways, saving our lives. He can’t stop the damage, but as Bro. Benny put it, don’t base your safety on fear, rather let your faith guide you.

David Hinds blog "I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet"

David Hinds is serving as a missionary in Southern Chile. He sent this message on Facebook.

"We are trying to let as many people as possible know that we are ok, no injuries. Our apartment is not habitable at the moment and we don't know if or when we will be able to go back. We are at our team leaders house, they have a building in the back they use as a class room and we have a couple mattresses on the floor that we can sleep on. Pray that God will show us how to glorify Him in all of this."

The message below was posted on his blog at: davidandlindahinds.blogspot.com

I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet…
Posted by David Hinds
As I was sleeping Friday night in our fifth floor apartment, I heard the noise of things falling. I opened my eyes and felt the room shaking vigorously. The light on our bedroom ceiling shinning from our alarm clock read 3:34. I instantly realized what was happening and shouted to Linda “It’s an earthquake, let’s get out of here”! I headed immediately for the front door, all the time the shaking was becoming stronger. About the same time as we entered the hallway, the electricity went out leaving us in total darkness and the sound of falling debris was getting louder. Then the building began violently lurching back and forth. We held on to the wall to keep from falling. By feeling our way along the wall, we made it to the stairwell and found that the emergency lights in the stairwell had come on and we were able to see. We made our way down the 5 flights as fast as possible and soon were out in the street in front of the apartment building. There were a few other people out there also. The shaking started to lessen and after about a minute it had completely stopped. It was then that I noticed that I didn’t have any clothes on; just my shorts, no tee shirt, socks or shoes. Linda had had the presence of mind to grab a bathrobe, but she also did not have any socks or shoes on. Linda and I talked with a young woman who was visibly shaken. I told her that this was my first experience with an earthquake and asked her if this one seemed serious. She said that yes, it was very serious and that she thought that the epicenter was very close. She didn’t not seem to be the lest bit bothered by my lack of clothes. My embarrassment grew as the number of people with us there in the street increased. I decided to chance it and go back in to get something to wear. It was still dark in the apartment, but I quickly found a flashlight, some sweat pants, tee shirt, socks and shoes. I retrieved my wallet and keys. Luckily Linda had not shut the door behind her. I could see a lot of glass on the floor in the apartment and hallway but neither of us had cut our feet on it. The automated gate to the parking lot was not functioning so I worked with several other men to open it so we could drive out.

Our first thought was of Anders and Jessica Snyder, a young missionary couple on our team who live in another high rise apartment only a few blocks away. They have two small children ages 4 and 2. They were not in the crowd in front of their building so I checked their parking space and the car was gone. I concluded that they had gone to our team leader, Trent Tomlinson’s house, so we decided to go there also.

After calming the children the six of us adults gathered around the Tomlinson’s dinner table and prayed thanking God for His love and asking for His wisdom and inspiration for the days to come.

About 2 or 3 years ago I started receiving a hymn every morning. The instant my eyes open a hymn starts playing in my head. It is always different hymn, although they do eventually repeat it is never the same hymn two days in a row. During the excitement, I hadn’t noticed that this had not happened when I awoke today. As we closed our prayer time the ‘hymn of the day’ flashed into my mind and I shared that with the other team members. We all sang the wonderful old hymn.

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him
How I’ve proved Him ‘ore and ‘ore
Jesus, Jesus precious Jesus,
Oh for grace to trust Him more

The ‘eyes’ have it

Over the years, I’ve been cut on, opened up and been wrapped in bandages from foot to head, literally, but my most recent experience with the scalpel was the first time I’ve had anything done to my eyes. And I think I can now say, losing my eyesight may be the worst thing I’d hate to lose. In other words, I think I could overcome anything, but not the loss of my eyes.

I’m in the second week of recovering from what my friend Elaine says is a mini-facelift. Actually, I had both my lower eyelids operated on – I had a procedure called Ectropian repair -- and thanks goodness both eyes weren’t done simultaneously. There’s a reason Dr. Bohn chose to do one eye at a time. Mercy!

What Dr. Bohn did was tighten the bottom eyelids, to stop my eyes from watering. He had tried a couple different things during my bi-annual visits to him, but they didn’t work. When Cynthia and I took our first trip in the I-Bus last fall and went up through Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and back down through Oklahoma City, then went to San Antonio for the better part of two months, I was miserable pretty much the entire time, because I couldn’t see and enjoy everything because my eyes watered constantly. In sunlight, in wind, when I sneezed or coughed. Constantly, I tell you. I had to have some relief, so my December visit, I told Dr. Bohn I had to do something.

He scheduled me in February to do each eye, two weeks apart. First the left, followed by the right. Each time, the eyes didn’t actually bruise like he had warned might happen, but there was considerable swelling. Cynthia had to apply an ice pack beneath each eye and doctor each eye nightly with an antibiotic ointment. Now that it’s all said and done, maybe I can enjoy our travels and life again. We’re talking of going to Nashville this summer and see her former East Texas Handbell Ensemble (ETHE) perform. California is still in the long-range plans for next year. We’ll see, or, at least, I’ll SEE.

Think my grandsons didn’t have fun!

The snow came and is already gone, but at least my grandsons got some enjoyment out of it, not too mention a day of missing school.

This was a first for Garrett, who’s only five-years-old. Brandon, 9, however, was a crusty old veteran. He had seen snow before, but had never built snowmen, nor had any snow ice cream. Karen, my daughter, made them snow ice cream, like good mothers are supposed to do. They live in Malakoff, TX, and according to some old-timers around the tiny little town, it’d been 111 years since it snowed. There’s no telling how old those old-timers were, huh? But my son-in-law Paul said he heard some of the old guys talking.

Brandon, Garrett, Paul and Karen all got a “snow day” and didn’t have to go to school last Friday. I think they were all glad, though, especially Brandon, who just a week or so ago, won first-place in an Academic Rodeo for elementary students. (just had to throw that in this blog, because we are very proud of him) His name was in the Tyler paper. We kept it for him, and when they came over yesterday, and we showed it to him, Garrett said, “Hey, why wasn’t my name in there?” Apparently, the competition factor still pushes these boys.

Oh, Garret, wasn’t as thrilled at missing a day of school. He has to miss a Valentine’s Day party. Drat!

Look, what is that white stuff?

Finally, it snowed in Tyler, TX. Cynthia and I went to bed last night and it was actually snowing outside. I kid you not. This morning there was around 3-4 inches on the ground. The weathermen I see on regularly on TV – Mark Skirto of channel 7 and John Adams, his competitor on channel 19 – were so proud of themselves last night on the news. Mark even went outside for his news (weather) cast. Snow was predicted to fall last night and this morning and Mark was so danged proud of his prediction, I guess he wanted to show his faithful followers he really does know of what he speaks. He’s been wrong so much. Predicting the weather is, well, just like predicting the weather, even with all those fancy gadgets the TV guys have like Doppler and computers, rain-gauges and others weather-related objects. I even arose early to look outside to see how much snow had fallen overnight. Yep, I was up at little past 5 a,m. when I got up to sneak a peek out the back door, where we have a light on the deck. After all it was still dark. I quickly crawled back in bed, under the heated blanket to get warm again, and got back up at 6:45 to stay. I won’t say what time Cynthia rolled out from under the covers, but it wasn’t too much later.



Cynthia is the picture-taker in our household, and I think she’s done good job with these, just like I’m the keeper of the emails, so to speak and, of course, she’s the down-loader, or is it up-loader? Because I don’t know a lot about computers. About all I can do is write these blogs … when I can think of something to say. She can write blogs, too, but I’m usually on the computer, or so she says. I just tell her when an email comes in for her personally, or when there’s a humorous one forwarded from someone else. Speaking of which, there have been a lot recently, concerning President Obama forwarded this way. Ever get any of those?


Enough about emails. I’m just glad we had new windows installed this week. These new double-paned, with argon gas deals, sure do keep the house warm. Just in the nick of time, too, especially since white stuff has fallen.

The Yankee Shrine