Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

I love Sufjan Stevens' rendition of this hymn!



O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

The "Ike" Story Part V

On Tuesday morning my mom took my dad's uniform to the cleaners to get it done before his next 12-hr shift.
The cleaners had electricity originally, but later that afternoon when she went to pick up his uniform, we were greeted with this:

that little orange paper said that "due to electrical shortages we are closed"

So, many businesses near our neighborhood are with out power. You will drive up on street and on one side, all the business have their "Open" signs lit up, but on the other side...a complete ghost town with lines of business with no power.

Some sights:

These cars are lined up for gas:

The policeman below is a common sight as they try to keep order as lines and lines of cars attempt to obtain gas:

The Walgreen's sign:

(all these pictures were taken through my car window, so the quality isn't that great!)

Tuesday evening, my friend Claire came over to check her e-mail and get some hot food. Claire's apartment was without power and is pretty new to town. She just moved from the UK to go to school here. So we were glad to have her come over and escape her dark apartment. I'm so grateful that God has given us our power and water to help serve others!

If you need to wash a load of clothes, check e-mail or take a shower..come on over! Give us a call, we'd be happy to see you!

Love, Adrienne Renea

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
-Zephaniah 3:17

The "Ike" Story Part IV

Needless to say we were happy to come home to all our amenities. We spent the rest of the day watching the news and this.

Sunday, my Great Aunt Doris and my(actually she's my mom's first cousin) cousin Jennifer and her little girl, Jordan came over. This was their first experience of a hurricane.

Cousin Jennifer just moved here from Chicago and was now unfortunately without power. So they came and spent the night. I had never seen my little cousin, Jordan before they moved here and now I'm totally in love with the little tyke!


It was great spending time with them.

Abortion and Voting

I'd like to direct you the
Covenant Life Church Blog where Josh Harris posted a great response to a question regarding abortion as a voting issue:
Correspondence on Abortion and Voting

The "Ike" Story Part III

So Saturday afternoon, we arrived to our house and found no damage. We looked through our back windows and found our back fence on two sides totally blown down:

But other than that and maybe a few shingles:

I'm so grateful that God spared out house from any damage from strong winds or fallen trees! Our neighbors made out pretty well too! A few fallen trees but nothing serious:

Best of all? We had power and running water! These amenities were(and still are!) very sporadic all over the city and other surrounding areas. We had no internet and our landlines weren't working, but we could get some cell phone coverage. We came home and turned to the television on to more devastation.

It was so sad to see the complete demolition of so many homes. These weren't just buildings! They are people's homes! All their photos, furniture, and other personal items! Gone! My heart is hurting for these people. Please keep them in your prayers!

Love,

Adrienne Renea

The "Ike" Story Part II

So we went to the Pauls and had a great evening hanging out with them. We watched the news as Ike crept closer and closer to the Texas coast. At dusk we observed a beautiful purple and gold sunset, I wish I had gotten a picture of it! By 10 0'clock, many of the buildings and houses on the beach were already feeling the effects of the impending storm.

We prepared for bed; we wondered how the storm would affect us.

Around 2 0'clock, I woke up and realized: Ike had arrived. Though we are a good 50+ miles from the coast the storm sent strong, whistling winds our way. The rain poured well into the late morning. After a very fitful night of sleep, we awoke to no electricity...a few minuted later though, it clicked back on! Mrs. Paul made everybody a delicious breakfast and soon after we ate, the electricity clicked off again. It went on this way throughout the morning. During this we were able to catch snatches of the news and see the devastation from the storm.

The cell phone connections were weak and I struggled to call and find out new from friends around the city. By way of text messaging, I was able to get information. I learned of the tornado at my friend's neighborhood, which badly damaged their house. I also was able to hear of changes in the status of electricity across the city.

That afternoon we returned to our house. On the way home we took in all the fallen trees and blown down fences in the areas near us:

A fallen tree seen through my rain-dropped window

A torn billboard

There was no bad damage in our neighborhood and we had high hopes for our house!

Part III coming soon!

Love, Adrienne

The "Ike" Story: Told in Parts

Well, I planned on blogging all weekend!
(yeah I know you didn't believe that!)

Alas, Ike took out our internet for a good two days!
So what happened? I guess I’ll start near the beginning.

So there was this hurricane name Ike….He was headed straight to the Texas Gulf Coast.

My dad originally suggested that we head to Dallas to stay with my mom’s sister. Well, we really didn’t want to do that and the storm wasn’t expected to really affect us.

So about Thursday everything started to close, to prepare for Ike’s landfall, early Saturday morning. I didn't go to work Thursday afternoon and all schools were closed on Friday. So it kinda was like a mini-vacation. We started Friday, getting the house ready for any strong winds. We taped and covered windows with mattresses and went to the store for food.

Dad has to work twelve-hour shift through the duration of the hurricane and its aftermath, so he knew he wouldn’t be home most of the weekend. So Friday afternoon he informed us that we would be going to stay at a friends house for the duration of the actual storm. So we prepared for an overnight stay with the Paul’s and headed over there Friday evening.

More coming soon!

Love, Adrienne Renea

P.S. Please continue to pray for those who don’t have homes to return to or whose homes were badly damaged as a result of the storm. There are also many who are without electricity or clean water, pray for provision for them!

Nothing but Time!

Both my job and school are closed this weekend, so I've gotta a lot of time on my hands! Because of it's proximity to the coast, church has been canceled too!

I do have some things from school to study for, but with no weekend plans, I'm going to be doing some other things around the house. One of my priorities? Updating my blog!

There are some other important things like-

• Clean my closet


• Do laundry


• Catch up on reading


• Return e-mail!

So I hope that I don't get lazy, but instead utilize this "at-home" time!

My family won't be evacuating, we're far enough from the coast and usually there is only rain and wind this far north.

Please pray for the safety for all those who are evacuating.