Family of the Month – Part One.

Everything was gone but we survived.

Story by Randy Grathen.

The small church my wife Laurie and I attended in Camdenton, Missouri announced one Sunday that they were starting a “Family of the Month” ministry. Each month a family would be selected, and members of the church would volunteer to do maintenance, mow the lawn, trim trees, paint, whatever was needed.

Well, the first family chosen was us. Our house was fairly new and wasn’t really in need of any maintenance such as paint, shingles or yard work etc. We told them that we really didn’t need anything, and they should pick someone else. But they were adamant. Our friend Wendy, who was the head of the committee, said the entire team prayed about it, and our name came up. The good news was they kicked off the new ministry in the middle of April, so we figured we’d be off the hook by the end of the month. The first Sunday in the month of May of 2003 was the 4th. We were anxious to hear who the new Family of The Month would be. Unbelievably, they picked us again! Wendy said it wasn’t fair that we only got half of the month of April. We pleaded our case again to no avail. They said they prayed about who the new family should be and again our name kept coming up.

On that same Sunday evening of May 4th our house took a direct hit from an F4 tornado. On the “F” scale, used to classify tornados, an F4’s wind speeds are between 207-260 MPH. Ours was estimated to be high F4. The funnel went right through the middle of our house and blew almost most everything somewhere else including all of our oak trees.

As you can see there was virtually nothing left of our 2-story, 2,500 square foot home. By the way, we were in the house when it hit. The last house hit before ours was destroyed and one of the three occupants was killed. The house directly across the street from ours; which had no basement, was reduced to nothing more than a bare concrete slab. Both elderly people in the house died.

Why were we spared? We don’t know. Only God knows and He hasn’t told us. But just maybe it was so we could share this story to help and encourage someone else.

More importantly, the tornado was just the first chapter of an amazing series of events to follow. Those stories are why I started Our High Places. I’ll share them in future posts.

Our rebuilt home is exactly the same square footage as the first. Adding the front porch and dormers created this mansion.