Picture it: Sunday, April 24 - Easter Sunday...I have never been a sunrise service kinda of girl, however about a year ago, Amanda Mc invited me to have our own sunrise service up on top of Viking Mountain, it was quite an experience. There was just something overwhelming that came upon me as the sun was rising over the mountain, it was something that I have never experienced before. As soon as I could feel the rays of sunshine on my face, I began to weep. The Savior had risen, He Lives! I thought about Mary and John and how they had lost their son and brother, but knew something better was to come. In just three days, Jesus had risen He had taken our sins, our shame, so that we could live again with Him. The following year, I wanted to share my experience with my closest friends: Erin Waddell, Jessie Neas, and Hannah Wilds. I was super excited that they wanted to share in this experience with me. The thought of waking up at 6 in the morning, just to see the sunrise was not appealing to any one of us and when our alarms went off at 5:50am, it still wasn't. However at 6:45am, as God promised, something marvelous happened on top of that mountain as it does every morning, the Sun had risen. The looks on each of their faces was remarkable, I was so blessed by their reactions. We read scripture and as the sun was rising we listened to this song by Sarah Reeves:
Here are some pictures that Hannah took during the sunrise service.
Another moment: As I was sitting at the house, I thought I had seen something walking across the front of the yard, I didn't think anything of it because I had been up since 5:50am, then Jess says, "Kristy, there are deer walking across your front yard." I said, "No Way!" Sure enough two dear were walking in our yard then strutted their stuff across the field. It was a beautiful site from God.
This week our county was hit with tornadoes. I spend the night with my Uncle Randy, Aunt Ree, Cyerra and Tyanna. I will never think twice about Tornado Warning and going to a basement. Althought the house we were in was untouched, the houses down the road were not so lucky as well as the communities of Camp Creek and some areas in Washington County. Wednesday night the tornado went through, Thursday morning neighbors and family members were out helping the community. The only thing that was touched on our farm was an old barn, the tornado took half of the barn down and left the field laying with tin and wood. We were fortunate nothing else happened to the land. My Aunt who works for an insurance agency arrived at work before 7am, but at 11am she sent us a text saying that they already had 2000 claims laying before them to go through and work out. We understood that she needed to go to work and I know all those that had been affected appreciate her dedication to her work. Before my grandfather arrived at the farm the rest of us decided we were going to help the neighbors. As we were pulling trees and branches out of their yard, I went over to another neighbors house and started doing the same thing, I asked them one simple question, "Where do you want me to put your pile of trees (thinking they would want it seperated incase they were to cut it into wood)" The man smiled and said,"There are no property lines." My heart sank, I was so touched by that simple phrase. "No property lines." I felt like that was something Jesus has been saying to us for years and I hate that it took a tragedy such as this for me to realize that. Jesus teaches us that we should help our brother and sisters out in Christ in whatever needs to be done. As he told me that, I just smiled and said, "you are most definately right!" Boy was I ever humbled. The Camp Creek area is still in need of lots of help and lots of prayers, the community has been such a blessing to those people in need. I feel so blessed to be a part of Greeneville and Greene County. When the going gets tough, we get tougher!
If you read this and would like to help out this community, contact our American Red Cross here in Greeneville, Tennessee and I am sure they will lead you in the right direction. There are many organizations that are helping with the clean up efforts, but the American Red Cross seems to be the easiest that I can think of.
