Yesterday near the end of Agape Vespers, the skies opened up and it poured. I got drenched getting stuff and kids into the car and shivered during the 45 minutes back to my mother-in-law’s house. Part of the fun: I discovered that while I had been loading everyone up, Pickles had climbed in the driver’s seat and rolled down the window. Ha ha, Mommy.

Father had a sixth grade Sunday school class from a local Methodist church coming to hear about Orthodoxy last night at 6. Apparently, this was the best time for them. I was to get everyone packed, fed and loaded and meet him at the church at 7 to begin the 2 hour ride back home. Fortunately it stopped raining while I loaded the van. Normally I would have checked the weather radar but I was pretty tired (and sleep deprived), short on time, and just wanted to get home. Besides, the rain had stopped and the weather earlier had been only a rain event so I was Unsuspecting.

I started 15 minutes late and called him on the road to let him know we were coming. He said that a crazy person had stopped by the church as the class was leaving and told him that he was a top government assassin and had a microchip implanted in his forehead. After a bit of prayer and money the man was persuaded to go away and Father locked himself in the church. Just a few minutes before we got there, I looked off to the south and saw a nice grouping of mammatus clouds amidst the lightening. I was excited (it’s been a while) despite the sure knowledge that we were going to be heading in that direction within 10 minutes. We got to the church, Father hopped in his car and we headed off. Over the phone we discussed that he needed to stop for gas. I wanted to stop at our usual place, just on the other side of the Tennessee River, but he said he was pretty low and so we stopped very close to the church. I got out of the van when we stopped and as I did, I could hear the tornado sirens starting up. I looked around. It was pouring and pitch black. The guy in the convenience store had no knowledge of storm location so we called Father’s mother. She checked and said that there was a tornado on the ground at Lacey Springs. Lacey Springs is just on the other side of the river… and has a really nice, inexpensive gas station.

We got back in the cars and drove North for about 5 minutes and pulled into a parking lot, listening to the local radio while waiting for it all to pass. There was quite a lot of tornadic activity in the area, all the way South. We drove slowly South, listening to the radio all the way and managed to drive just behind the main storms. It took us 2 1/2 hours and I had a splitting headache when we got home, but I’m VERY glad to be here despite the four hundred loads of laundry to do today.

The children slept through the whole thing. Fifteen minutes before we got home, Ribby woke up and asked:

“How come it’s taking us so long to get Papa from church?”