September Memories

Last September we experienced our first major hurricane. It was quite an event for me even though I grew up on the west coast of Florida. Hurricane Ike came ashore in Texas and boy did things look different around here after he left. Thankfully, we were only without power four days at our house. A little cool front came and kept us cool. Each night we had 12-15 people at our house to eat. I had a generator keeping one of our refrigerators going so neighbors would bring me food from their freezers. We all ate really good.

This is how things normally look around here:

After Ike this is what we saw when we walked out side:

The park near our house looked like this:

Another Memory:

I know we all thought back to the day of September 11, 2001...where we were and what were were doing. I remember seeing something briefly on the TV about the World Trade Center being hit by the first plane. I turned off the TV so it wouldn't scare my daughter and we rushed on out the door to go to school. I drove across the street to pick up my neighbor's son who carpooled with us. She walked out and asked me if I saw the Pentagon had been hit by a plane. I told her "No, it was the WTC. Not the Pentagon." Sadly we were both right.

Speaking of Memory:

I received this from our Community Association Office last week.

They forwarded this man's picture. He has amnesia. He was found beaten up and left for dead in Richmond, Georgia. He has very little recollection of his past and no idea who he is. Linguist have determined from his accent that he could possibly be from Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana or Colorado. Someone out there has to be looking for him. I felt sad for him and decided to post him on my blog. You never know.

Here is the link for more information regarding him:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1007umga.html

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Lastly, I wanted to share with you about Dr. Margaret Nikol. Paige and I heard her speak today and share memories of her life growing up as a Christian in Communist Bulgaria. Her mother, father and brother were all martyred for their faith. I wish you could hear her story in person. She has speaking engagements all over the U.S. Check out her website http://www.intl-impact.org/. She will be in California, Oklahoma, Texas and Illinois between now and the end of the year. You have to see her if you can.

She still has such a burden and a heart for Bulgaria. She translated the entire Bible into the Bulgarian language and in 1993 took over the first copies of the Bible that those churches have had in years. She's has since provided Bulgarian believers with over 600,000 copies of the Bible in their language. One memory that she shared touched me so much. She told of her mother's death. The Communist had poisoned her and brought her home to die. As she lay dying, Margaret and her younger brother were with her and she told them that the prayers she had prayed for them would follow them their entire lives. They did. She prayed that Margaret would be a musician and she was. By the time she was four years old she was playing organ and piano in their church. She prayed her brother would be a Pastor and he was. He was martyred two weeks before the Berlin Wall crumbled. Both of his sons are still pastors in Bulgaria. The story is incredible. I wish she would write a book. I'm glad Paige could go with me to see this Hero of the Faith and hear her memories.