Yes, we were hit...

When we moved to Muscatine we were told countless times that the curve of the Mississippi River, where we live, somehow keeps tornadoes from hitting in our little city. Well, that myth has been busted.
Some of you heard about the tornadoes that hit Eastern Iowa on June 1st. Well, our house was one of the houses to get hit.
We actually were on our way up to Minneapolis for the weekend. I was going to go to Bethel Seminary's graduation and watch some of my classmates graduate (because of the workload, they fell a year behind our cohort). It was also going to be a little R&R for the fam. Things changed with one phone call.
We were driving to the Twin Cities, through a horrible thunderstorm. We could barely see the road yet we kept moving forward. About 10 miles north of Cedar Rapids we came out of the storm and thought we had a clear shot forward. About 20 miles later our cell phone rang, it was our neighbor and good friend Dan Steele. He was speaking fairly quickly and all I heard was Rene' say "yes," "no," "oh my gosh," and "is there anyone hurt?" Dan went on to tell Rene' that a tornado at our houses and blew the tree in between our houses down. The wind snapped the tree into 3 major pieces. Dan was in his basement and thought it was hailing. When he walked outside he was in disbelief. The corner of my deck was trashed and the gutters were hanging off the back side of our house. We were actually lucky, another foot or so and our new remodel would have been toast.
We instantly turned around and made it home in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Emma, hating storms like she does, was very upset. When we saw the house she started to flip out a little until I made my way in and got her teddy bear. Big teddy was okay, but our cat (who was in the basement) freaked out and threw up everywhere.
We spent the next 6 hours cleaning and cutting up trees. Our small group was there before we got home and many in our church came over almost instantly to help in the cleanup of our neighborhood. It was a unbelievable testimony of community. I get choked up even thinking about the great people of our community. I made 2 phone calls (Kyle Eller and Dan Schoepf) and we had the mess under control in no time. The help was not isolated to us, there were many in our community helped by friends and strangers willing to help in the midst of destructive chaos. Community always comes through!!
Here are some pictures...