Leading Through Servanthood

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Our Stories

    It was August of 2004.  Nick and I had been watching the news for days as Tropical Storm Bonnie was being tracked along with the storm that was to become…. Hurricane Charley.  We weren’t too concerned, though, since there was no real indication that either storm was coming our way.  Besides that, Nick had promised me very early on in our marriage that hurricanes didn’t hit Orlando.  He said it was like there was a Disney bubble over the city that kept the storms away.

    On Thursday, August 12, Bonnie came ashore in northern Florida but caused no harm to us down in the Orlando area.  By this time, Charley had become a full blown hurricane but was expected to come ashore far enough north in Florida as not to have an effect on us.  We continued to keep an eye on the news and stayed aware of the storm just in case it changed course.

    Nick went to work that Friday morning and I kept the TV on to make sure we would know what was going on with Charley.  We talked on the phone several times throughout the morning and Nick kept reassuring me.  By noon, though, the storm was at category 4 and had turned inland sooner than expected.  Its track was now such that we all knew Orlando was going to get hit; the Disney bubble was going to be tested.  Businesses began shutting down and preparations swung into high gear.  Nick stopped on his way home from work to buy bottled water and non-perishable food supplies (peas and green beans as the stores were selling out of nearly everything) so that we would be okay for a number of days if the storm did too much damage.  Then we spent the next several hours preparing our house for the impact.

    As we prepared for Charley, Nick kept assuring me that we were going to be fine; that we didn't need to run from the storm.  We would be safer staying in our home than we would be out on the highway trying to outrun it.  It was his gentle strength and my sheer will that kept me from panicking.  But there came a time when I knew that even if we wanted to do so, we couldn't possibly outrun this storm.  That was a very scary moment.  Nick gently persuaded me to take my anxiety medication and then to drink a little bit of cold medicine.  Together, the medicines put me to sleep for a couple of hours.

    When I woke up, it was about nine o’clock in the evening and Charley was over top of us.  Thankfully the medicine kept me from feeling the terror I would have otherwise felt.  I was able to periodically watch out the windows and listen to our tiny battery powered TV that kept us in the loop of where the storm was.

    We had just celebrated our first anniversary barely two weeks earlier when Charley came, and I didn’t yet know a whole lot of places in our area of Florida.  But as the news crew was tracking the storm, I remember looking at Nick and saying that I knew exactly where those places were; that the storm was coming right for us – and it was still at category 4.  Knowing this, we pretty much stayed in our downstairs bathroom hanging on to our cat and two dogs while we could hear the storm ripping the shingles from our roof.  Whenever possible, Nick would go outside and make sure our house was okay.  Since we could hear shingles being pulled off the roof, we weren’t sure what was happening to the actual roof itself.  The winds were fiercer than any I had ever witnessed or heard before, and the rain wasn’t any less frightening.  This went on for a number of hours, and then the storm was past us.

    In the end, the eye of the storm stayed a few miles to the west of us and continued on north.  That didn’t mean, though, that we escaped damage.  The worst part of the storm is to the east of its eye.  The Lord was watching over us, and later we would find that we didn’t sustain near the damage that we could have or should have and neither did anyone else in our immediate area.

    After it was clear the worst of Charley was over, we made our way outside to see if we could tell how bad things were.  It was the middle of the night so we couldn’t see much.  We could tell that some trees were down - including one that appeared to have landed on our neighbors’ pickup truck.  We also talked to as many of our neighbors as were out and about and thankfully everyone was fine.

     When it was daylight, we got a better look at the damage.  We could see the shingles that had been torn from our roof and some of the tar paper and plywood that was left exposed.  There were no gaping holes.  Our yard was littered with shingles and debris from surrounding trees and plants.  Other than that, we had dodged a bullet.

    One thing we needed to do right away was cover our roof with plastic to avoid further rain damage.  Nick did his best to cover as much as possible.  After almost falling off the roof twice (parts of our roof were two stories high), Nick decided that it wasn’t worth losing his life.  He had been able to cover enough roof as to protect us from further damage.  The plastic he had been able to secure did its job for the next week.

    Our power had gone out not far into the beginning of Charley and it ended up being out for six days, which at the very least was uncomfortable because it is very hot in Florida during the summer.  The temperature hovers in the nineties during the day and doesn’t get much cooler at night.  Our home was not designed to be without air conditioning in the summer and so it was sweltering.

    One of our friends graciously opened his house to us and our pets when his power was back on three days after Charley.  We stayed there for three days until the power at our house was restored.  It was very exciting to get the phone call at nine o’clock that Thursday evening from one of our neighbors; the power was back on in our neighborhood.  We quickly gathered up the few belongings we had with us, along with our pets, and went home.

    What we weren’t expecting to see when we arrived home was the pile of debris that stood two stories high on our front lawn.  Since we hadn’t been at the house for a few days, the cleanup crews had used our lawn to pile debris from our neighbors’ lawns.  It took a few weeks for someone to come and take the pile away and by that time our lawn was pretty much ruined.  We worked for months trying to save it, but it ended up having to be replaced.  Nick’s uncle and aunt graciously donated the sod to us - which was a bigger blessing than they could ever know.

    I wish I could say that was the end of our story, but it wasn’t.  The morning after Charley hit us, we went to our insurance company to find out what we had to do about getting our roof replaced.  Our agent told us that he would have to come to our home and verify the roof needed replacing.  If it did, we would have to come up with $2,500 because policy holders have to pay a deductible first.  While we were finding this out, we overheard another customer being told that she would have to come up with $9,000 to get her roof replaced.  Nick and I couldn’t believe what we were hearing.  After all, isn’t this why we have insurance?  To make sure we don’t have to pay out of pocket when a disaster happens?  No matter, though, we and everyone else with a policy like ours was going to have to pay something out of pocket.

    Also that morning, we drove to Nick’s parents’ home to see firsthand the damage they had from Charley and to see for ourselves that they were okay.  It’s one thing to speak to them on the phone and hear that they are okay, but we wanted to see them face to face.    While we were with them, some roofers were going through their neighborhood offering their services to those who had roof damage.  Nick talked to and hired them.  They came the following Saturday and replaced our roof.

    Hurricane Frances hit us on September 5.  We again lost our power and this time it was out for five days.  We were relieved when our neighbors’ just over our back fence allowed us to plug an extension cord into an outside socket.  They had not lost their power this time.  Because of being able to plug into their power, we were able to run some fans and our refrigerator.  This way, we were able to remain in our home.  It was still very hot but we got through it.

    Hurricane Ivan came onshore in northern Florida on September 16 but had no effect on us in central Florida.  Then along came Hurricane Jeanne on September 26.  She took our power out in the very early stages but it was restored within the hour.  During the rest of the storm, we retained power and didn’t sustain any new damage to our home.

    As Hurricane Jeanne was being tracked a few days before she hit us, I told Nick that whoever was Jonah should get out of the boat.  We were extremely tired of the hurricanes; we were exhausted.  Many folks had not even removed the boards protecting their windows from the last two storms and here we were about to be hit again.

    After Jeanne was past, I began to seriously consider my comment about Jonah getting out of the boat.  I wondered if maybe the Lord was using these storms to direct Nick and me in a new direction.  That isn’t to say that I believe the storms were meant just for us.  If one lives in an area prone to hurricane activity, tornadoes, flooding, earthquakes or fire, one should expect and be prepared for that activity.  I just was considering that maybe the Lord was using the hurricanes to nudge us in a new direction.

    I spoke to Nick about what I was thinking and we agreed that we weren’t going anywhere until we prayed about it.  In prayer, the Lord told us that it was time for us to leave Florida and we were going to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He was ready for us to move there and to start a church in the area of the inner city and the universities.  We asked the Lord to confirm this through two people while we would say nothing to anyone.  A few weeks later the Lord did confirm His plans for us through those two people.

Four months later, we were in Pittsburgh.

 

To read about our calling and move to Pittsburgh, go here .

When Charley Came to Visit