Tuesday had already been an emotionally exhausting morning as we sat and listened to story after story of persecution and warfare that is going on among the Master's people in foreign places. Many stories moved us to tears. It had been a challenging, humbling and inspiring day.
After a short break for lunch, we came back to our meeting room for one more hour-long lecture. Still a little dazed and glassy-eyed, I sat down to try to focus on the current speaker.
Our meeting room is an open auditorium filled with a little more than 30 small, white conference tables and red, padded chairs where we all sit - about 150 adults or so. The table where CJ and I normally sit is in the front row, although this day, our front row table was on the end, closest to the exit door.
I was sitting at our table with my usual surroundings: my Macbook, my cup of coffee, my copy of the Good Book, a notebook, pen, etc.
About halfway through the current session, a low rumbling noise started reverberating throughout our auditorium. I turned and looked at CJ sitting to my right. "What is that?" I whispered.
All of a sudden the walls around us started shaking and the ground beneath our feet was vibrating. All of my stuff on the table started shifting around.
Pause time here for a second as a multitude of thoughts flashed through my mind…
"Is this the end time? No, we're all still here."
"Is Hurricane Irene already here? No, it's too soon for that."
"Could it be a tornado? No, it's a beautiful sunny and perfect day outside."
"It's too much noise and vibration to be a plane passing overhead. What in the world could this be?!?!"
As mass confusion set in among our group, our guest speaker excitedly announced, "It's an earthquake! Get out of the building!"
CJ was already out of his seat and heading toward the door when he turned around to me and said, "Grab your computer!" He had his in his hands. (You notice his priorities) :)
I turned back around to our table and noticed that the people who had been sitting with us were on their hands and knees under the table where we had just been sitting.
I grabbed my computer and said, "Ya'll come on! The door [leading outside] is right here!"
We were running out the door within probably 30 seconds of when the commotion began. As I cleared the doorway I heard a voice on a loudspeaker say, "Evacuate the building! Evacuate the building!"
I could feel the heat from the sun on my arms and face as we busted through the door. It was one of the most beautiful days outside we have experienced on campus, but in the most unsettling fashion, the ground that we were standing on was still shaking.
It was all over in just 45 seconds, but it seemed like many minutes.
I had no more let out a sigh of relief that it was over and we were ok, when I looked at CJ and gasped, "The girls!"
The building where the girls go to school each day is very close to the building where we have our classes, about a fifty yards away. But I had exited our building on the farthest side away from their school.
With my computer in arms, I took off running towards the girls' school, passing through all the other people who had evacuated out of ours.
When I caught my first glimpse of their school, I couldn't see any of the children. I ran around to the back of their building where over some high hedges I could see them all huddled in a group.
When I finally saw Zoë and noticed that she was crying, I ran right through the middle of the sticker bushes to get to her quickly.
I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight. After a few moments, I looked down at her and said, "That was really cool, huh?"
"No!" she said. "I didn't like it."
I would later learn that she was in the children's library when the earthquake began. When the book shelves started rocking and knick-knacks on top started falling off, she became frightened like I think any grown adult would.
Her teacher who had been waiting in the hall called for the children to come out of the library and go to the bathroom for safety. Apparently because she was in shock, she felt kinda stuck in her place in the library and couldn't move. It was a friend who yelled at her, "Zoë! Move it!" that she finally came running out of the room. As she was running towards the bathroom, the loudspeaker announced for everyone to evacuate the building.
By the time I got to her, she was still shaking.
But later, when the kids were returning to their classroom when the all clear was given, I heard her whisper to a friend, "That was so cool!" :)
She was ok and it was a good learning experience for what will likely be something we experience from time to time.
Miá happened to be riding in a van on the way home from a field trip to the zoo when the earthquake occurred. They never felt a thing and didn't even know it had happened. When her class returned to school and I picked her up at the end of the day, she had no idea what she had missed.
Later that evening when an aftershock shook, she was running across a soccer field and still didn't feel it. I said, "did you feel it?"
"Feel what?" she said.
Oh well…. nevermind.
When cell phones and internet finally came back, we learned that the earthquake was a 5.8 on the Richter scale with an epicenter only 30 miles from where we sat in our classroom. It was also the largest magnitude earthquake endured by the East Coast since World War II. Not so shabby…
In the end, it's the training time that has rocked my world more than any occurrence in nature. We've been stretched, pushed, challenged, inspired and motivated. And when the earth is shaking, it's good to know that our Boss is holding us right in the palm of His hand. He's holding us. We're holding our MacBooks. :) No, wait. Let me say that again.
He's holding us and we hold the desire to tell others who've never heard about the One who holds it all.
What are you holding on to today?
