A Long Weekend

We just got back from four days down in Oregon. We used the long weekend to go visit friends we haven’t seen in a while. We loved getting caught up with everyone and seeing how well they are all doing. It sure seems to me that the Portland area isn’t suffering from the economic downturn as much as the Seattle area. We saw construction going on, no one we know is out of work, all the restaurants we went to we had to wait to be seated and there were no vacant store fronts. Weird.

The main reason we went down is because a “friend” of mine is in prison down there. Actually, he’s been in prison since 1976 and I met him through an outreach our church did that Christmas. We’ve been writing ever since. The last 12 years he’s been in Oklahoma and was recently transferred back to Oregon so a visit was long over due. I looked at it as a homeschool field trip opportunity as I wanted Kaleb to experience up-close-and-personal what happens to people who don’t learn to obey or submit to authority. I think it made the point. He was literally bored to tears and wanted to leave after about 15 minutes. Too bad, so sad. We redeemed the trip for him on Sunday when Kory took him to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry – a place he dearly loves. I visited with other friends in Portland and overall, the weekend was fabulous. A little tax-free shopping didn’t hurt either.

This past week has had my thoughts consumed with the earthquake in Haiti. It happened only four days after I had that dream about the tsunami. We were planning a trip this month to the Bahamas but it never happened, which I can now see as the hand of God because we were going to visit a missionary there who works with Haitian refugees. She’s fairly overwhelmed at the moment. My heart has just been breaking over the devastation. We got an encouraging e-mail from her however. It’s good news in the midst of all the bad. She wrote to tell us about one of her pastor’s two daughters who were attending school in Port-au-Prince:

The younger daughter was taking a nap on the ground floor while the older sister was doing her homework on the flat roof of the two story building. Doing her lesson, she suddenly felt a tremor and saw the crack in the roof. Without thinking she literally jumped off the roof onto the ground below. SHE WAS NOT HURT….NO BROKEN BONES….NOT A SCRATCH……I WONDER WHY!!! When she ran around to the front of the building she saw her sister standing in the road, in front of the shambles of what was a house. She asked her sister how she got out of the house. She said she didn’t know but all she knew is that she was SLEEPING IN THE HOUSE AND THE NEXT THING SHE KNEW SHE WAS STANDING IN THE ROAD. I WONDER WHY!!!

What a miracle. Yes, thousands have died and I can’t even think about those trapped that are still alive and may die waiting to be rescued, but I do like to think about the angels that obviously showed up for these two girls, and who knows how many others whose lives were spared. I’ve come to a place of peace long ago, about death. The Bible says God knows the day we will die even before our days on earth begin. If it’s our day to go, we will go -  if not, he’ll send angels to protect us. Hallelujah.