Hurricane Helene!

 My husband and I were deep into sleep in the middle of the night, or some would say real early in the morning around 3 or 4 AM when we heard loud noises outside and strong winds.  We got up and realized that a very bad storm that sounded like what I know as a tornado was happening.  We heard trees crashing around the rental home we were staying in, and other loud noises.  Joseph, my husband, prayed for our protection, the protection of our rental home, the protection of our neighbor's property, and for the protection of the manufactured home that we were having built that was still under the final construction phase.  We went to the safest part of the rental house and waited out the storm.  When the sun rose, and the storm had passed we realized it had been a real, live hurricane that we had been in.  When we went outside, we realized how God has protected us as power lines were down everywhere, a tree had fell in our neighbor's yard and was on top of one of their vehicles, another tree had fallen in their backyard and had missed falling onto their home by inches.  Other neighbors further down the street had trees that had actually fallen on their homes and powerlines were down everywhere.  After we got over the initial shock of what had actually happened, we noticed no trees had fallen in our rental home yard, and that our vehicle and rental home had no damage besides that two rocking chairs on the porch and the bistro table and chairs had blown off to the side of the house.  We were very thankful for God's protection.  All praises went and still go to him.  We decided to drive to the land where the home we were having built was to see how it had fared hoping for God's protection there as well.....Here is more of this story in pictures that I took.

BELOW:  pictures of our rental home...you can see the blown over rocking chair, bistro table and chairs.  Other than that, no damage to the rental property which stops at the fence line.

BELOW:  Our neighbor's tree that fell on one of their vehicles but missed their house by inches as you can see.  Later on, that day, we found out that miraculously, the tree that was on their car left their car unscratched.  Wow, other people had cars crushed all over town, so this was a definite miracle.  Answered prayer for sure.

BELOW:  Joseph gathering the rocking chair to put it back on porch while waving at a neighbor.  This morning was very community building.  People gathering together not only to survey damage but helped each other like neighbors use to do in the old days before our time.  It was beautiful!

BELOW:  Joseph and I decided to try to get in the car and try to drive around to see how our home being built had fared, and to see how his workplace had fared.  Little did we know how blessed we had been in our neighborhood as we drove around that saw much more damage around town.  Below you will see how bad the hurricane was in other nearby areas......My husband was in the army years earlier, perhaps he felt like he was driving in a war zone as power lines were down, we had to dodge, trees that were in the road, ETC.

BELOW:  Finally, after driving through the war zone we reached our land and manufactured home.  Was our home okay.....Whew!...God had protected it greatly.  Absolutely no visible damage!  Other homes in the vicinity of the same kind had trees down, trees going through their roof, siding ripped off, damaged and exposed roofs, but our little blessing was standing just fine and there was not even a tree down in the yard...nothing...It didn't even look like that storm had happened in our little land sanctuary.  Thanks be to God!  We noticed that our neighbors right next door had minimal damage too.  We were happy for him as well!  It was like the hurricane lifted up and passed our land by.  A few weeks later, one of the house trimming men were inside the house working and Joseph and I stopped by to see his progress...he asked if our home had been standing during the hurricane because he saw no damage inside or out in our yard.  We told him yes, it was standing...He was so shocked.  This was motivation for us to do better in our lives in pleasing God as he surely protected us all around.

BELOW:  Once we could see that the outside was okay, Joseph went inside first checking for damage and there was none.  We were so relieved.  It didn't make us just thankful, nor make us feel like we're doing okay, but it encouraged us to do even better.

ABOVE:  My favorite room, the kitchen!

I learned in all of this what a great employer God has blessed my husband with.  Go DOT FOODS!  Not only is it a great company with DC's around the country, but they really care about their employees.  They gave many care packages to their employees because the power was down for about 2 weeks in the area.  (Some people roughed it with generators...Joseph and I tried to rough it, but it was so hot we drove up 2 hours toward Macon...towards Atlanta...the closest area that had power still and stayed in a hotel.  Joseph commuted 2 hours one way to work and then 2 hours one way back from work everyday!...That's 4 hours per day on the road....but he did it!)  Anyway, going back to his great employer that were so great; before we decided to book a hotel; Dot Foods allowed me to come to work one day with him and just sit quietly in the break room to have A/C and electricity as they had generators.  They gave water, care packages, toilet paper, paper towels, and many more perks to their employees to show their appreciation and to help employees out that weren't as fortunate as us.  I'll promote DOT Foods any day, anywhere to all.  Great company!

BELOW:  Some of the care packages from DOT Foods given to their employees.