Drowned Rats                                                              (or Drenched Teenagers)

A tornado warning was issued Friday morning for that evening. However, by late afternoon the forecast was changed to severe thunderstorms. After wrapping up a loose end in the temple, Arline got out to the car just before the BIG, fat raindrops started to fall. By the time we got to our apartment, torrential rain hit and we decided to wait in the car for the worst to blow over. Weather around a tornado brings heavier and longer rain than usual. Because Arline is on crutches, we've developed a new temporary driveway that takes us within feet of the back door, but even with that short distance to traverse, we waited for the heavy rain to let up because it was raining really hard and it takes so long to get everything out of the car and for her to balance on the crutches. 

After several minutes, Dave started the car to turn on the wipers to see why a bug wouldn't wash off when it was raining so hard (it wasn't a bug, it was a new rock chip), which also turned on the headlights. Shortly after that, similar to the way insects gather around lights, we were startled to see four shapes loom up by the side of the car. Some kids from a youth conference got separated from their group and were looking for the bus stop. The only buses in Nauvoo are tour buses, so we didn't know what they were talking about.

Fortunately our back door was unlocked and we told them to go inside so they could use their phones to call their leaders--it was raining too hard to try to use them outside. Eventually, the two of us made it inside too. Those poor kids were soaking wet and worried about dripping on our tile floors. When we left for Nauvoo, we packed as little as we thought we could get away with and our two bath towels didn't stretch to four completely drenched kids.   

The youth conference group had just finished walking the Trail of Tears/Trail of Hope that ends at the Mississippi River and then settled in for a testimony meeting before the storm broke. When the leaders saw the storm was imminent, they told the kids to run for the buses. These four kids didn't realize the buses were right behind them and took off running in the opposite direction. Our apartment is more than a half mile away from the river.

After they dried off a little by dripping puddles all over, they finally got in touch with a friend on the bus. The leaders were frantically searching for the kids and so glad they were safe. The kids kept saying they didn't know where they were but were at a member's house, so I'm sure the leaders wanted to make sure they really were safe. We laughed when they kept asking what color our building was--the low apartment buildings are all made from the same color brick, but even more that that, it was too dark to see what color anything was. We went to entryway of our building and stood there until the bus pulled up and the kids rushed out.

Later we wished we had gotten a picture of the four kids, (or at least the puddles they left in our kitchen) but it was all over so fast, we didn't think about it. They probably wouldn't have wanted to be memorialized that way anyway.

We thought our timing was awful that we were stuck in the car to wait out the heaviest of the rain, but instead, we were able to be an answer to prayers. Even the new rock chip seems insignificant.