miracle monday

hello all! i've been a tad busy with the summer starting and all the kids out of school, so i haven't really posted much at all. here is a miracle that happened right around memorial day this year.

joy is a woman i used to bowl with. she's a really nice woman. she just lost her husband the previous may, and at the time this happened she had 2 of her daughters living with her. one daughter is mentally handicapped, and the other is going through a divorce.

i am sure you have all heard about the flooding here in the midwest. the mississippi jumped it's banks and flooded many towns and fields...janet's miracle happened before all this.

memorial weekend, we got around 9 inches of rain in one night. i'm not sure exactly when because we were on vacation in florida at the time. places that have never flooded before were under water. joy lived next to a creek. she had lived there for 20+ years. the water had surrounded her house once before, but never had it come inside. at least, not until that night. she was home with her daughters, and the storm was raging. she looked outside and saw the creek had risen quite a bit, enough to make her tell her girls to leave the house. they were finally able to get her handicapped daughter to leave the house, the water was at the door. joy went back in to get her purse and some belongings, and leave by the front door. as she tried to step onto her porch, she couldn't find it. it was gone! the water was at her waist by this time. she looked to the neighbor's house and it was not in the same place. at first she thought his house was moving, but she noticed the power lines, and realized her house was the one moving. she tried to get out the back door, but the furniture was all floating in the way. the house caught a power line and snapped it. she felt a slight buzzing sensation in her legs. her neighbors called 911 and the firefighters tried to decide what to do. they decided the best thing to do was to wait until the water had gone down some before mounting a rescue. when the water was down to only a couple of feet, they got geared up and went in to save joy.

her house was a total loss. she didn't have flood insurance. the cars were the only things insurance covered. thanks to her church, and many friends, she is on her own and has some belongings.
joy is not a good swimmer. had that furniture not blocked her path, she may have tried to swim for it. flood water overcomes even strong swimmers. (that's why the firefighters had to wait before going in to save her) she wouldn't have survived it. her house stayed intact while traveling 50 feet in a raging flood. God was with her that night.

this is the article about joy that came out recently. http://stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/sj2tn20080701-0702stc-pokin0.ii1.txt