A few of you have called (except members of our family:) and asked how we are doing in light of all the storms and flooding we are having here in Iowa. We are fine, but it is a mess around here. We live close (20 miles) to where many of the rivers feed into the Mississippi. Additionally we live on the Mississippi and it is rising, but we are pretty high up where we live and we are in no danger of being flooded. But.... getting around now is very interesting. Many of the roads are closed (even Interstate 80) and navigation is tricky. There is water everywhere as you get close to the rivers. I remember the flood of 1993 that effected so many here. I didn't live in Iowa then, but I remember it because Rene' and I were vacationing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and the only English channel we could get on our tv was CNN. The coverage at the time was focused on the flooding in the Midwest. I believe that our church even sent teams to St. Louis to help rebuild after the floods. I am hearing that the floods now are worse than they were in '93. They called '93 the 150 year flood and now this one is becoming the 500 year flood.
There are additional problems with the flooding that many people don't realize unless you live here. One is that we have had such a wet spring here that the farmers still aren't done planting. It isn't uncommon to talk with a farmer and have him (or her) tell you that they still have over 200 hundred acres to plant. Second, the floods can wipe out crops. Third, with the roadways such a mess, trucks are having a difficult time navigating through the detours (some detours are over 100 miles out of the way). This in turn will mean that the truckers will pass the expenses and we can expect to pay higher prices. It feels like this will never end.
Our prayer request is obviously for the people displaced right now and the farmers. Personally for us it is for Emma. I don't know if any of you have a phobia, and I mean a true phobia (one that completely suspends you from functioning), but Emma has one and it is thunderstorms. We live in a place where we have a lot of storms and Emma is truly frightened of them. She can explain how they work and knows everything about storms and tornadoes, but she is still frightened. Last Saturday we had a tornado warning here in Muscatine (the tornado was about 5 miles away) and when the warning sirens went off, Emma was outside. She took off running into the house and grabbed her blanky, big teddy bear, and Nintendo DS and headed straight for the basement. I happened to be gone at the moment and when I got home I went to the basement to calm Emma down. She was crying and screaming that she wants to move back to Oregon cause they don't have storms there. It was crazy. She finally calmed down and was relieved when the all-clear horn sounded. Last night was a severe thunderstorm. Emma lays on our bed, fingers in her ears, and cries until it's gone. There were a couple of cracks of thunder that were so loud it makes your entire house shake like you are having an earthquake. These are not fun times for Emma and I truly feel for her. It is a true phobia. Please pray that she can continue to deal with this as she get's older.
