Outside the Safe Zone

Today started like a normal day....coffee and cartoons with Riordan at 8am. Then on to reading the News online and making breakfast. Got a phone call from friends in the states and talked for awhile before John called from work to share big news so I called my mother. I stayed in constant motion chasing my son, juggling conversation and planning my Friday afternoon...At about 2:45pm local time(11:45pm Missouri time) I was laughing with my mother when I noticed the couching moving and assumed it was the usual Japan tremor that happens every few weeks and just rattles our door knobs for 20 secs...but then I was shaking hard enough to rattle my entire body, so I made my way to get Riordan from his nap upstairs and all the while my mother in Kansas City can hear the glass and blinds rattle on the other line. Riordan was fine besides whining a bit in confusion and I ended up dropping the phone to keep my balance to get back down the stairs...I can not explain the surreal awe of stepping outside on to solid ground and feeling like your drunk/sea sick as you grapple with the fact , that outside the heavy sway of your house, the earth will continue to move beneath you, moving a two ton excavator across the lot as if it were the branches of a tree swaying in a hurricane...We made it fine to the middle of our lawn with other neighbors and then commenced making sense of what just happened before I realized I need to call John on Camp Zama 10 minutes away. The silence, the still, and calm was short lived as another aftershock hit but passed quickly. Minimal damage in my house just fallen items throughout but I was more concerned that my cell phone could not call out and after 10 minutes Johnathon finally reached me from base with news that the cell phones were down except for emergency communication throughout Japan and during our brief conversation the aftershocks continued to shake the house....Watching the news cover the source of all of this made me sick to my stomach. Watching the devastation consume my beautiful and gracious host country was heart-breaking in so many ways.

All my life I watched from the safety of my home, the very middle of America, while the world's tragedies progressed around me and of course I felt a great sadness and said prayers for those effected but still remained mostly unaffected because of distance and lack of relation. You watch devastation and death tolls rise from your T.V. and then you go about your lives while discussing amongnst friends, who will on occasion donate aid....and suddenly I'm on the very edge of it all. I'm so very thankful that we were only physically shaken up but viewing the disaster when I'm only 30 miles from Tokyo and seeing so many places I've visited on fire, demolished, and being swept away is gut wrenching...reminds you of God's power and how merciless mother nature can be...

I know you've all been watching as you awoke this morning and finding out what we've been living through all day, I must say I was touched in so many way by my friends and family. The incredible power of social media has been proven to be even more beneficial to modern communication, In my case, Facebook. I began to reassure and share my status and instantly had so very many well wishes that it eased my stress in such an amazing way. To be so connected instantly, to even those with which you rarely speaking with , is strangely comforting and wonderful. I feel blessed and loved and grateful!!!!!

As of right now we are fine buit exhausted from feeling, watching, and worrying. The warnings right now are to be prepared large aftershocks or another possible earthquake around Tokyo. I'm sure all your generous prayers will keep us safe though...

Pray for Japan as well. Pray for the US soldiers headed out to do rescue. And pray for all others in the path of the tsunami.