INDESCRIBABLE DEVASTATION AND DIVINE APPOINTMENTS

I don't even know where to start describing all that we saw and did the last few days in Oklahoma. We arrived Friday morning to a small sub division of mostly mobile homes in Shawnee, Ok where the One Family One Purpose team had been assigned by Americorp Disaster Relief Organization. Every home was either gone or destroyed beyond repair, except for maybe three out of sixty or so homes. Mobile homes are indeed no match for tornadoes, and neither are well built brick homes for that matter when you reach the EF5 level as was the case in Moore. We worked all day with several families, cleaning up and sorting the salvageable personal belongings from the trash. I don't know how many times I  just stopped and looked around and took it all in and cried. We met people who rode out the storm in underground shelters that thought for sure they were going to die. One family we helped with personal belongings to gather, had just arrived in Florida the day their home was destroyed. They took their daughter Angelina to see the Ocean for the first time and was only able to stay a few hours, when news of the tornadoes destroying their house came and they had to return home. We met a woman that used their storm shelter because they were in Florida, otherwise there would not not have been enough room for her and her family and surely would have perished. God was orchestrating the saving of lives months before the storm by one family planning a vacation only to allow another family to live. WOW GOD IS SO AWESOME!!! A Christian biker group has a tent set up and Larry and his team cook all day for the families and the volunteers. Roy Day brought his Bobcat and made short work of debris removal as the rest of us loaded wheel barrows and took stuff to one of the multitude of piles of debris. We loaded up a few loads of "good" stuff and took it Angeliques storage locker toward the end of the day, and while there, the warnings again filled the air waves of impending severe storms coming right at us. We arrived back at the Church we were staying at, showered and went next door to the Western Sizzler Buffet to eat, while the storm clouds built, just to our north. We all had our eyes glued to the T.V. while the radar exploded with at least 7 confirmed tornadoes on the ground while we ate and I jokingly said that I was going for desert right now, in case we have to evacuate. Just as I returned with my cobbler and ice cream, BAM the power goes out and the restaurant staff is herding everyone into the cooler and freezer away from all the windows. For over an hour we stood in there, praying, wondering, hugging, not knowing what was taking place outside. Imagine standing in a freezer, I mean a sub zero meat freezer for an hour. I called our two daughters and told them where we were, just in case. We got the all clear and exited the coolers but by now, several people with their dogs and kids got off the road and into the restaurant as the storms battered the area. Part of our group had run back to the church before it got too bad and road out the storm there. Twenty minuets after leaving the freezers, we were again commanded to run back into them because two tornadoes were on the ground only blocks away. One to our north and one to our south. They split in two before it got to us. We were on 12th st and one hit on 19th street, and the other on 6th st. Two and a half hours later we were able to get back to the church, just 100 feet away. At least 9 more people died that night, and I'm sure many more have a story similar to ours.