Blessings

I took the bus from Manhattan to South Orange and was astounded at the amount of damage and debris I saw still on the roads. Being from Tampa, I am no stranger to hurricanes, but we have been blessed that the hurricanes for as long as I can remember have avoided our corner of the world. I have never had to drive through my city and see the havoc Mother Nature left. When Sandy hit last week, I was running around the apartment filling up the tub, buying perishables, getting flashlights in easily accessible places. All through Sunday, Monday, and early Tuesday my team waited...and waited...and waited. But the electricity stayed on, the water kept running, and the worst damage we could see from our window was trees flexing in the wind. I was getting updates from my aunt in CT who lost power for a day, the other Catholic missionaries - who live in a house behind the university - who were without power until yesterday afternoon, and other missionaries from the area most of whom lost power. Driving to campus last Wednesday to pick up my car from the parking garage where it stayed during the storm, we saw countless trees and limbs blocking roads. The lights remained dark in the neighborhood between our apartment and the university until yesterday. The devastation is astounding, but the response from the students is amazing as well! DOVE, the service organization on campus is swamped with students desiring to help our neighbors. 

If you could please keep one of my student leaders in your prayers. She has family that lives on the coast. Her great-aunt's house is condemned, the sea-facing wall having been swept away. A few other relatives' houses, including her grandmother's house where she has lived the past two summers, have at least 3 ft of water damage, making the furniture useless and requiring a lot of work to make them livable again. It's really shaken her up to see pictures of that house on the Internet, taken by random strangers who are wandering the coast documenting the damage. 

In happier news, I was able to go home this past weekend! It was such a blessing to be with my parents! At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to leave as my flight was supposed to leave last Thursday morning from JFK, but after only a little bit of hassle, I got switched to a flight from Hartford, CT to Orlando. One of my teammates graciously made the 3 hour drive from South Orange to Hartford in Starr then turned around and drove her back. My mom promised him homemade apple bread, though, so it's all good. Then my mom was waiting for me in Orlando, having driven 2 hours to come pick me up. She and I can talk about pretty much anything, so the 2 hour drive back was filled with easy, light conversation. You know, things like emotional chastity, finding joy in difficult situations, not being married in heaven, and how to be a better missionary. Man, I love my mom! 

Getting ready to head home! (in other news, I now have Instagram and think I am a professional photographer)

Sitting by my pool in the backyard, soaking in the FL sun...

She went to a scrapbooking event on Friday, so my dad and I were on our own for dinner. That translates into Mr. Empanada!! It was so nice to sit down with my dad and chat. We had a great time at dinner and then chugged up on the couch to watch The Book of Eli. Great father-daughter bonding time. We were going to go see Flight on Sunday, but his dad (my grandfather) passed away on Saturday evening. He has been sick for a while and we weren't sure he was going to hang on this long, but he's a stubborn man. He made it to his 90th birthday which was last Monday and held on even longer as a special gift to me so that my parents were home for 3 days with me before they headed up to PA for the funeral on Sunday morning. The funeral was yesterday, and though I'm sad I wasn't there, I heard it was beautiful. 

More on the weather front, I just have to illustrate how much God loves me. He allowed me to go home and lounge around in my sundresses and bare feet for 5 days out on my back porch before He sent me back north to the Nor'easter storm that gave us a good 3-4 inches of snow yesterday. Brrrr!!! Spent a while unburying Starr this morning.   

...fast forward 36 hours and it's snowing!!!

Poor Starr! (and since I think I'm a professional photographer, sometimes I tilt my phone sideways...which sometimes works better than others)