December 1st of 2006 started off just like any other day. It was my junior year of highschool and i got off the bus like normal and headed home. I had been home for a few hours, did some homework and got online. Then the phone rang. It was my dad and he said, "Hey Bets, a lady I work with said that she thought she saw flooding in our area and I wanted to make sure everything was okay...will you look out the window?" I peeked out the front door window and screamed! The creek near our house had overflowed and was now covered my front yard! My dad said, "Hey, it'll be okay. Just keep an eye on it and I'll call back every so often to check on you." As the hours passed the water continued to rise. We had 4 steps that led to our front door and by the time my stepmom got off of work, the water was passed the third step. My stepmom didn't know about the flooding...she got home and had to park the car down the street and start yelling for us to get out of the house. Keep in mind it was december in Ohio so...the water was below freezing. So we did as Debbie said, grabbed the dogs, some shoes, turned off our house's breaker and waded through the water to the car. It was sooo cold! and the rocks hurt as i stepped on them in the water to get into the van.
From here we went to my dad's work. He was able to get off a little early to see what damage was being done. When we got back we had to wade through the water again and get everything we could off the floor. My brother's room was already filling with water...and by the end of it they will have had 4.5 feet of water in their room. Not much survives.
Red cross puts all 6 of us in a Super8 motel room for 1.5 weeks. I was happy to have a place to stay...but that was the worst time of my life. I had to continue to go to school even though all i could think about is the fact i was homeless. After the 1.5 weeks someone scrounged up so money and paid for us to stay in a two bedroom apartment for 5 months! God was sooo gracious! I had to sleep in the livingroom, and lost a lot of sleep those nights, but again I was so grateful to have a place to stay.
During the time in that apartment our houses ended up getting flooded again about twice as bad, and then it caught on fire 3 times one day while the industrial fans tried to dry it out. I was veryyy veryyy stressed at this point and we were trying really hard to find a new house.
Thanks again to God we found a house sooo many times better than the one that we lost. And we learned in hind-sight that the floor boards in that house we collapsing and the washer was leaking under the house creating mold! So if God hadn't have put us through all of this...we could have gotten extremely hurt when our livingroom floor collapsed under use.
I love God sooooooooooo much! And because of him we still have that wonderful house, free from the flood plains of the city and in a good part of town.
Anyhoo I have another testimonial...but I've got to get ready for work. So...yah. God knows what's best for us even when there doesn't seem to be an upside to the situation. Put your trust in Him!
From here we went to my dad's work. He was able to get off a little early to see what damage was being done. When we got back we had to wade through the water again and get everything we could off the floor. My brother's room was already filling with water...and by the end of it they will have had 4.5 feet of water in their room. Not much survives.
Red cross puts all 6 of us in a Super8 motel room for 1.5 weeks. I was happy to have a place to stay...but that was the worst time of my life. I had to continue to go to school even though all i could think about is the fact i was homeless. After the 1.5 weeks someone scrounged up so money and paid for us to stay in a two bedroom apartment for 5 months! God was sooo gracious! I had to sleep in the livingroom, and lost a lot of sleep those nights, but again I was so grateful to have a place to stay.
During the time in that apartment our houses ended up getting flooded again about twice as bad, and then it caught on fire 3 times one day while the industrial fans tried to dry it out. I was veryyy veryyy stressed at this point and we were trying really hard to find a new house.
Thanks again to God we found a house sooo many times better than the one that we lost. And we learned in hind-sight that the floor boards in that house we collapsing and the washer was leaking under the house creating mold! So if God hadn't have put us through all of this...we could have gotten extremely hurt when our livingroom floor collapsed under use.
I love God sooooooooooo much! And because of him we still have that wonderful house, free from the flood plains of the city and in a good part of town.
Anyhoo I have another testimonial...but I've got to get ready for work. So...yah. God knows what's best for us even when there doesn't seem to be an upside to the situation. Put your trust in Him!
