We had our domestic mission in north carolina. It was a 3 hour car ride and when we got to the cabins and settled in it was pouring rain.
Our host told us we were going to play volleyball and gaga ball. It was super fun we all went and got soaked and then got covered in mud. It was a good squad bonding moment.
The next day we evangelized I was with one of the leaders kate and my squad mate hannah. I was nervous but the first lady we talked to was really sweet but we got to talking to her and she said she was a medium which is someone who talks to dead people. But that’s actually just the devil and so we talked with her for a while and got to pray for her. But throughout the day everyone we talked to every time we mentioned God, they kept getting distracted by phone calls or people coming up to them. It was crazy. But we got to explore the town,asheville it was really cute. Then after that we went to excel college which is who let us stay in there cabins during our week. They had a gathering twice a day for gathering the community. We had a meal with them and had a game night.
The next day we pulled weeds in a garden all day, it actually was really relaxing. We did that at Black mountain home for children. One of the parents there brought all of us berries, which was awesome because we haven’t had those in a few weeks. We came back and we were supposed to have a night out on the town but it was too rainy, so we had a girls movie night and watched parent trap.
Then me and my squad mate organized paint the next day for 6 hours as part of our ministry and we organized Black mountains home for children’s thrift store.
Hurricane:
Then we got woken up at 8am to evacuate the cabins because the rain and wind was getting to be too much. So we went to the dining hall which is more up the hill. We kept getting alerts for a flash flood so we were told we had to stay there all day. I only grabbed a few things because I thought we were coming back. We played uno and had breakfast to pass the time. Then my team mate zack pointed at the window during the game and I looked and all I saw was the wind and mud hitting the window and breaking and a cabin sliding down.We all ran out and I went back in to make sure no one got stuck. the building was filled with muddy water up to our knees.We got told like 20 minutes before to not go in the bathroom because there was some water coming in that way, that was the only part of the building that collapsed and if we would have been in there we would have been dead. Only Gods grace saved us from going in there, because there were 35 of us. We also wanted to worship but they told us to wait and we could do it later and we were confused why we couldn’t then, but again God knew what was coming so if we would have been worshipping we might not have seen the land slide.One of the girls twisted her ankle really badly from jumping off the staircase to escape the mudslide. We tried calling 911 but they couldn’t get to us because the roads were either destroyed, covered in trees, or flooded with water and debris. So we were stranded by our vans for an hour and a half and we all were calling our parents trying to figure out what to do. everyone was crying/ praying/ hugging and I gave everyone hugs bc i was so thankful we were all alive.One of my team mates gave his life to God during that because there was no other way that we all made it out alive without his help. We had to stay in the vans to prevent ourselves from getting hypothermia or stay moving outside. We all lost so much stuff but everyone was thankful to have there life it made all of us realize how value able we are versus our stuff. Then there were 3 guys that helped us, one of them was a trained rescue relief guy so he helped us figure out what to do. We had a bus across the river that was made from the mud and water so we waited for that to go down some. then we finally got to cross the river and all got shoved into the bus.They also moved our vans from next to our cabins to near the dining hall thankfully or else the vans would have demolished our cabins. We also could have been stuck in our cabins if we didn’t get woken up at 8am because our breakfast was at 9 when the hurricane hit and our cabins got flooded/covered in mud. The structure was ruined and the guys cabin was destroyed. then we came to black mountain home for children they gave us food, clean clothes, and blankets. then we all finally got settled in and they said we’re packing up becsuse there’s a gas leak and it’s safer at the hilton inn conference hall. Which we only got a spot because they heard what happened to us, they were booked from other people but they were still willing to take us. The hotel worker and a few others even gave us the shoes on their feet. They gave us blankets and water. We couldn’t get there because our vans were still in the flood, and our mentor asked the front desk if they knew where to rent a car but obviously we were in a hurricane nothing was open, but she said it was the holy spirit because when she said that 6 guys with trucks offered to give us rides because they wanted to make sure we all got out okay. Again God knew what was going to happen and his perseverance was crazy. I’ve never seen everything line up like this to keep us safe. One of my team mates dad heard we didn’t have our vans anymore so him and w few of his friends drove through the night to make sure we got home. It was so sweet, then the hotel gave us free breakfast and bought us some shoes, and prayed for us.It was also cool to see that what we did for the black mountain home for children through the week we ended up getting it ready for us to stay at.
Also how did no one step on nails and glass. It was a true testimony on how God loves us so much. Also the distaster relief team was told they couldn’t get to us and they did, they tried multiple ways to get to us but couldn’t and the only way to us was the prison gates, they were open.
It was a crazy week, and even with all of that there was a fundraiser started for us and in less than 48 hours it got $43,000 for us, so we could get our missing stuff back.
The rest of this week we processed what happened, then had debrief about what happened at training camp. We also had some sessions and worship of course.
We leave for guatamala in two days so prayers for that would be awesome
