our memorial day

Grandma and Grandpa Junker's house. They will find out this week, but are hoping that it will be condemned so they can just rebuild or possibly move. It already had some foundation problems and the tree that fell on it made it worse. It was one of the first houses to get damage and pretty much everything to the south of it was destroyed. (I think...not good with directions up there) There are a lot of Junkers around Parkersburg so they have will have places to stay in the mean time. It was great to see so many of them helping them and others. It's a great family.




This is across the street from their house.









This is just a picture from the car. There was so much that looked like this. You couldn't recognize anything in this part of town.




We went up to P-burg this morning and got back around 8:00. It's pretty unreal. RJ and his brother went to town to help and I stayed out at my friend Alisa's parents, which are RJ's aunt and uncle. Slick how that works out, huh? The authorities didn't want just anyone coming in unless you had good reason to be there so there were check points and long waits to enter in the morning, but RJ didn't have any troubles by the time they got there. They helped at his Grandma and Grandpa Junker's house and some of the Junker family had other family who lost houses so they went around helping at those also. I went in later in the afternoon to see the house and we drove around a bit. It is still unbelievable. I kept saying it was like a movie set because it just didn't seem real. I have never seen anything like it. It's amazing that there weren't more deaths with all the destruction. The houses were literally flattened. We heard a lot of stories of how people survived and it's all so amazing. God allowed the tornado and and at the same time allowed so many to survive. Again, we are so thankful that his grandparents weren't home when it hit and at the same time pray for everyone else who had more severe destruction and for the losses there were. I can't imagine the feeling of losing everything. I know our earthly possessions shouldn't matter, but so many lost even the necessities and have to start from scratch. I'm sure it's just overwhelming for everyone who lost so much. Keep praying for everyone involved.


Now tomorrow is already Tuesday so this will be a quick week. I think we're going to head up again this weekend to see his family. It will be interesting to see progress that is made in the next few weeks/months/years. They will continue to need our prayers.