Thursday, March 25, 2010

"A Night Under the Stars"


As we began to gather our thoughts, I just couldn't make myself go upstairs, and my children wanted me very close to them. Our Canadian neighbors made it back to our house and we started making plans for the evening. I knew we would not sleep in our home; we felt so trapped and if the earth started to shake again, we had no way out. As the men, talked it over, we moms, gave baths in a kivet (a large tub used for washing clothes) and put them in their pjs. The men decided it was best to stay over at Randy and Karen's to conserve as much as possible. Brandon gathered blankets, air mattress, and pillows and we walked over to their house. As we began making our way over, we could see that our haitain neighbors were working on getting the body of the mother who saved her children, but didn't make it out of the home before it collapsed on her. I began to think of all of our church people and could not help but wonder if they were doing the same. These questions would have to wait to be answered until morning. As the men worked on Randy's wall that had collapsed, we began preparing beds and sleeping arrangements. We finally were able to settle down. I remember Kofee was sooo hyper and not a care in the world. It was like a big slumber party to him; he would crawl from matress to matress and thought it was so great that we were on his level. When we finally laid our heads down that night, I prayed myself to sleep. Prayed for safety for our people we had not heard from; prayed for safety through the night; praised God for keeping us safe and our dear friends safe. Around 11 pm, we were sleeping soundly, but an hour later, we awoke terrified as everything began to shake around us. We jumped up grabbed the nearest child and ran outdoors. Before we could say anything to our husbands, they began dragging our mattress outside. It was such a feeling of helplessness. I felt like I needed to be so strong for the kids, but yet, I ran at any shake or loud sound. We finally settled everyone down again, but it was not the last aftershock of the night, and there began a long restless night under the stars.

2 comments:

  1. You are so brave. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. Love ya, Maria

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  2. Thank you for sharing this post Nikki! I cannot imagine experiencing anything like that. - Tinyla

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