Right now, I am sitting in my bedroom, watching Hannah sleep, wondering if the house is going to make it this time. Our day started out normal enough, normal for me anyway. Everyone went to church and left me laying here on my bed with lots of good DVD’s to watch. I hate to admit it, but I am starting to look forward to my quiet Sabbath mornings at home where I can understand the sermons, and pray and study as long as I want with no interruptions!  But, all good things come to an end, and pretty soon, everyone came back. The first thing that I noticed as Hannah raced in to give me a big hug was that she was SOAKING wet. I mean wet enough to get me pretty wet too! So, I changed her, and then went out to the living room where I found that it was raining really hard. (not raining in the living room, it was raining outside) But it was REALLY raining. I never have seen rain like that in America, and I still really enjoy watching it. Pretty soon, the girls were teasing Travis about getting him a glass of chocolate milk from the creek, since it turns a nice chocolate milk color when it rains hard for long. I really didn’t think much more about it since it does this a lot, until Roy announced that the water was running across the field. I have never seen that happen before, so I decided to go and take a little walk to investigate. (I am still terribly slow, but I can walk now) I was really shocked! Just getting out of the house was an adventure, since the pathway was under water, and you could not tell how deep it might be. There is a board across the little ditch that we dug around the house, and trying to find it in the murky water was quite exciting. Then, I walked up to the field, and Travis met me and told me that he didn’t know if the bridge could make it this time. The water was running on both sides of it, and right up to the bridge itself.

Logs and other debris were washing up against it. Then Roy came running to tell me that the well was under water, in fact, the creek on that side of the property looked like a huge river instead of a quiet little creek.

I went over there to see this strange sight for myself, when I saw a SNAKE in the water! This was a bit too much for my fragile condition, so I retreated to the house for a while to recuperate.  But, I got so curious that when Pawkuhmooeydee and Meme wanted to go see, I went with them. The water was about 18 inches deep running over the well, and Roy had been working to get all of our buckets and bath things out of there before it all washed away. (we did lose some stuff) But while I was standing up to my knees in the water, watching this strange sight, a coconut went sailing by! Travis started watching for coconuts, and we managed to get a good one, and also a pomelo! I don’t know if a coconut tree fell over upstream or what, but there were a lot of coconuts floating by.(most of them were out of our reach in the raging torrent, that is why we only got one)  Anyway, our new kitchen looked pretty strange too, but we immediately decided that it needs to be a bit taller, and so they will do two rows of bricks before pouring the floor. We had no idea that we would have to worry about water that high up!

On my way back to the house, I could not help but notice that my neighbor, who is just across the creek and upstream a bit, well, her outhouse was underwater! The water was running quite rapidly right through it….that made me wonder a little bit about the cleanliness of that dirty brown water, and just what might be swimming in it.I wonder if I should offer to help her locate her outhouse a bit further from the creek on high ground? This must be a yearly occurrence, since we really have not gotten the rain that is normal for this area this year.  In fact, I am wondering about the person who decided to build a house right here in the first place! All the neighbors gather across the creek and watch my house as the waters rise. I think that maybe they want to see us sail away?

We have disappointed them so far, but every time the house shudders, I want to grab the piano and Hannah and run. (I trust that the others can get themselves out!) The other problem is the bridge. We had to cancel AY today since we could not safely cross the bridge with the motor bike. It is still there last time we checked, but a huge log was against the side of it, and it looked like it would be possible for it to push the whole bridge out of its way.

(the house keeps wiggling and it makes me nervous) The only thing that keeps me from evacuating is the fact that this house has been here for at least three years, and we have not gotten much rain compared to normal. Come to think of it, this whole property is kind of like an island, if the bridge went out, there would be no way to get out of here. The creek runs all the way around it, and right now it is more like a wild river. What fun! I love the water and the rain, I just don’t like the snakes….and, I am getting a little bit tired of the roar of the water fall.

It is really nice when it is a little creek, but today I was lying in the hammock with my little girls, and Meme was trying to tell me a new Karen word, and she must have shouted it a dozen times, and I could not hear what she was saying! Somehow, this reminds me of when I was a little girl, we lived at Southern, (now Southern University)  and some friends bought a house that had a creek going under it. They thought that it was really neat until the flood came and washed the house away. (it was a long time ago, but that is what I remember) This all reminds me of a story in the bible about a man who built his house on the sand, and the winds came and the flood came, and the house fell down. Let’s just make sure that our lives are built on Jesus, so that when the floods come, we can stand firm for him.