Minutes to Memories

Fierce thunderstorms ripped through our area today, bringing over seven inches of rain to the Coast, along with significant tornado damage in counties just north of us. It was all more than a bit reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina for many folks. Those feelings will remain close to the surface for a long time to come it seems.

My daughter's fourth grade class began the day with 20 kids in attendance. There was some confusion on the television station this morning about schools closing (actually the 5th grade school did close today from roof damage), and by day's end, there were 8 kids left in her class. I'm sure most of the parents that came to check out their kids did so because of the confusion, though I suspect the memories of Katrina and the accompanying desires to have your children close by factored in to many of those decisions.

Hurricane Katrina thoughts came back even stronger tonight at our Peak of the Week Class. There weren't very many of "us" there tonight, I guess because of the storms. But there were two relief groups in town today that have been here before: the New London Christian Church (Iowa) is back at our place, and our friends from the Lone Oak Church of Christ (Paducah, KY) are working at Central CofC in Pascagoula, but they came over tonight to see old friends.

At the end of class, Mitchell Covington (preacher at Lone Oak) remembered that he had a DVD that he had made after their first two trips to Ocean Springs. He gave it to Mr. Jim, and we all sat down to watch it. It was a wonderful DVD for anyone to watch (Mitchell did a GREAT job on it), but it was especially poignant for us to watch. I don't cry, and I didn't, but I thought about it. :-) Memories.

It was neat after all was said and done, too, to watch the folks from the New London Christian Church and the Lone Oak Church of Christ getting to know one another. Just another good thing coming from this storm...

So starting early today, Hurricane Katrina reared her head more visibly than she has in a while. But just like I should expect by now, it all turned out good in the end.