MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 07-25-2006

Greetings once again! Much has transpired since the last update. Last Wednesday, a "super cell", meaning, a powerful, fast-moving pocket of thunderstorms, tore through St. Louis, plunging half the city, over 500,000 people, into darkness. We were getting ready to go to church, and I was outside grilling up some steaks, when I spotted the storms coming, pretty fast. I called to Anna to get the kids outside to put their toys away, and within five minutes of their completing that task, the deluge struck. We found out later that the winds were equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane. Suffice to say, it was quite interesting. Our only tree was whipping back and forth like crazy (the kids were quite concerned, so we had prayer for the tree, which was spared incidentally), and I was amazed it was still standing under the pressure. I knew the rain would come any minute, so I drug the grill under the shelter of the garage roof to finish cooking dinner. About the time I decided it was too dangerous to be outside, and that medium would have to be good enough for Anna's steak, the power went out. We finished our dinner in the dark (thankfully, it was complete. Cooking would prove to be a challenge in the near future). About the time we needed to be heading to church, the tornado sirens went off, so instead of going to church, we went down to the basement to wait it out. Everything was fine, but the area was decimated. Trees were down everywhere, and power lines with them, and in the middle of a heat wave (100+ degree weather, and St. Louis' usual 80% humidity). Highway 270 (the circumferential highway around the city) was shut down, because semis had blown over in multiple places. It was total pandemonium. Communciations was affected, with police, fire, and EMS unable to radio each other. Plus, it got dark soon, and there was no light now other than candles and flashlights. Now, I know, this is standard in places like Uganda. There, ironically, because power goes out all the time, the populace is generally much better prepared, either because they never had power to begin with, or because they have the requisite generators and/or battery backup systems in place to begin with. America is not used to such things, so, if you'll pardon the expression, we always get caught with our pants down in an emergency it seems.

Next day, we and some other refugees went to our church where they still had power, to weather the extreme heat and humidity a little better. There were limbs and things down all over the church property, so a bunch of the young men cleaned that up. That night we moved the food from our house to the church refrigerator to try and save the groceries we had just bought on Tuesday. We spent the night in our church's basement. On Friday, another thunderstorm struck, bringing tornadoes with it. This threw a bunch of people out of power who had gotten their's back on Thursday, bringing the total number of people without power to over 600,000. This one brought down many trees and branches weakened by the first storm. We had been in the middle of making breakfast at the church when the power went, so we had to carry the half-cooked eggs and bacon over to our house (we have natural gas, the church uses all electric) to finish cooking. It was a war zone. So many streets were blocked with trees and downed power lines that it wound up taking a half hour to make a ten minute drive, as we took this long, circuitous route around all the damage. Ameren UE wound up bringing over a thousand linesman in from all over the country, in addition to their own 1500 or so, and had them working 18 hour days, seven days a week to try to get the city back on the grid. We got out that afternoon again to clean up all the debris that the second storm had dropped on the church property.

The supermarkets in the areas had to bring in refrigerated trucks to save their perishables, and gas became scarce, not just for cars, but for those needing it for generators, as most of the gas stations were without power. The QT near our house had a thriving business, since they had bought three big generators in preparation for the big "Y2K Disaster" that never materialized, and became the only gas station for miles around with functioning pumps. We sat in line like it was the Carter administration to get gas, if only to keep our car running for a few more days until our meeting on Sunday. Ice was in high demand, and people were driving miles away to get it. There was a mass exodus from the city, as people went to stay with relatives and friends who still had power.

On Saturday, in the midst of all this, Anna and I had to fly down to the First Baptist Church of Ocoee (Pastor Kevin Courtney) in Orlando, FL, leaving our kids with Anna's parents. This made us feel a bit guilty, leaving everybody behind in discomfort and stress, while we went off for the weekend down in Florida, just the two of us. There was nothing we could do, though, since the church there had already bought plane tickets for us by the time the storm hit, and we had scheduled the meeting months earlier.

The church in Ocoee took great care of us, and we greatly appreciated it. We haven't been away like that since our honeymoon (Candidate School doesn't count!), and it was neat to have my wife with me travelling with me for a change (normally, when I fly somewhere, I go alone). The meeting went great. We had a great time of ministry to the people there. They're a sweet bunch of folks, and we had some great fellowship with them. We hit it off well with the Courtney's (turns out both Pastor Courtney and I love the movie "The Princess Bride", and had his wife and mine in stitches quoting from it). They gave us a very generous love offering, which was a real answer to prayer, as we were beginning to wonder how we were going to get our house payment paid this month.

On Monday, we headed back to St. Louis. I kept calling the house to see if the power was back on yet (when it is, if you let it ring, the answering machine comes on), but no such luck. We finished up the flight, and returned to the 19th century in St. Louis. By this time, Debbie Guimon (Kyle's wife, has a house near us) had power, so we went over to her house to get out of the heat. God graciously sent a cold front through on Friday, which brought temperatures and humidity down for the weekend, but the summer came back with a vengeance on Monday. That night, at 7:00 PM, we had power again. What a relief!

Thankfully, most of the stuff in our freezer was fine. It did give us a bit of a scare when we opened it. Some blackberries had melted and ran down into the bottom, so our first thought was "Oh no! Look at all the blood!" We got that cleaned up, and commenced to cooking all our meat before it went bad. It was still cold, but only refrigerator cold by this point. I'm grateful that we won't have to replace everything. Our refrigerated food was fine. Our Pastor had a generator, and kept our groceries refrigerated after power went out at the church on Friday (the church got power on Sunday afternoon, so they were able to have evening services after all).

WHEW! What a week. Pray for our Pastor and family. It's day six now, and they're still without power. They have generators with which to keep their freezer and refrigerator going, but the stress of all this is really starting to wear on them. There was a legion of electrical trucks in their area this morning, tho', so I'm praying they get power back by tonight. Pray for the over 100,000 people still without power, particularly the elderly who can't tolerate the heat. Pray for the intrepid linesman, out working like slaves for long hours in the heat to get everybody's power back on.

I hope the unusual length of this email doesn't get the folks who want us missionaries to communicate, but keep it short and sweet, all confusticated and bebothered, but it couldn't be helped. There was just too much to report…

Well, that's all for now I reckon. We have no meeting next week, but will be starting off August with a meeting in Rickman Road Baptist Church in West Paducah, KY (Pastor Stan Durrett). Pray for us!