Thankful Sunday, September 10, 2017

I am thankful for shelter.

The hurricane activity this season has been a good reminder of how very lucky I am to be safe and dry with a roof over my head. As we have seen, not all are so lucky. The last few days I have been hearing the story of one of those unlucky families and I've shared some of it below. Communication has been very difficult since the hurricane, so some of the details are sketchy.

Melanie and her sister at my wedding. 

Melanie is the daughter of friends and I was her constant babysitter when I was in college. She was adorable and we had a lot of fun together. Now Melanie is all grown up and married with with 4 children of her own. She lives in the U.S Virgin Islands on St. John. Or she used to. Irma wiped away everything she and her family had. Luckily, no one was hurt, but they had no where to go after the storm except into a van that some how had miraculously survived.

The main concern for them is to get off the island before Jose comes barreling through. Easier said than done. The local airport had some damage making flying iffy at best. The first flight they could possibly get out would be on Tuesday. In the meantime, the family got on a chartered boat with others to Puerto Rico hoping to fly to the US from there. However, Puerto Rico is having enough problems of their own and refused to let them enter. The boat had to turn around in the middle of the night for a 3 hour trip to St. Croix. There they got a hotel room and it was the first time they had a place to sleep and bathe since the hurricane hit. Now they have tickets to fly out of St. Croix on Friday to Texas where her in-laws live. Here's hoping for the best that that actually happens.

What you don't get from my telling of Melanie's story above is the desperation that you hear in her families' pleas for information. The anger and panic you hear when plan after plan falls through. And imagining what it must be like for those four children ages 8 months to 11 years old as they are going through this very scary, difficult situation.

Melanie and her family have survived and will be able to move forward with the good family and friend support they have.*  It's going to be a long road, but they will make it.

So for the shelter I am so lucky to have and the shelter that Melanie and her family found last night, I am thankful.

*Presently, there's a Go Fund Me drive to help buy plane tickets for them. The tickets are about $2-3000 each.