Wednesday, July 14

So apparently, the monster rain we recently experienced was not just a storm that was part of the rainy season, but typhoon Conson.  Around 11pm on Tuesday, my electricity went out while I was on the phone with Corey.  I decided to go stay with Leah in an apartment building one street away, as she still had electricity and I figured if the electricity would go out, it would be better to be with people than in an entirely separate building apart from everyone (all the other interns live in the same building except for me...).  Going outside was a little eery, the wind was starting to get out of control and debris was starting to blow off of structures and fall to the ground.  Walking was, at times, difficult, as I tried to push through the air and reach the other apartment complex. Once I was safe and sound at Leah's, we tried to go to sleep early to prepare for the big visit of Gary Haugen, President and CEO of IJM and some supporters of IJM.  We laid our head on the pillow, but neither of us could sleep from the noise of the wind and crazy storm outside.  There is a condemned building right next door where we kept hearing glass shattering all throughout the night.  At one point we gave up on sleeping and just sat and watched the storm go on outside the window.  There is a hotel across the street, and I saw a man try to leave and walk to his car a few steps away..the wind overtook him and he just started sprinting down the street.  I knew he didn't intend to originally sprint down the street because I saw him trying to crawl his way through the wind back to his car.  I'm supposed to be used to this whole hurricane thing being from Florida...and I think I was fine for a while...until around 2 or 3am when the fire alarm to the building went off....I went into panic mode as I was having flashbacks from my first week here when my building actually caught on fire and was a mess the rest of the night.  There was no fire, just a technical problem they said, but I just couldn't relax.

When I first heard of a typhoon heading this way, I contacted my dad and asked that he pray the rains wouldn't ruin the art exhibit we had planned for Thursday.  Amidst the fire alarms, the lack of elecrticity, the insane wind and consistent glass shattering...I turned to Leah and asked "why did I ask my dad to pray for the art exhibit and not...for our lives."  Now that it's all over I realize how safe I was...and while we were concerned that the weather would affect all we had planned for Gary's visit, it turns out having the typhoon on Tuesday meant no rain the rest of the week, which was a huge blessing. The electricity at my place was out for 2 days, but that is it. Having all those rains also brought down the temperature too, which made sitting in heat not as bad as it has been the past few months. My fears from the storm seem somewhat unfounded when you hear about the actual devastation so many people have experienced.  Please keep them in your prayers. 

pictures of the devastation