We interrupt this slow developing blog-cast about Uganda to bring you the latest news from the winding river...

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. –James Boswell from Life of Johnson, September 1777.

So when I first met MM he went on and on about this house. The house on the river. The house in which he grew up. The house he spent hours and hours playing without siblings. On and on the stories went. Before that though I remember returning from senior vacation with my dad and the Hwy 20 bridge across the Ochlocknee was closed and we had to detour through Quincy. I said “Those dang fools living on the river!”. I had no idea that less than 10 years later I’d be one of those fools. I think I even sang the song “Don’t build your house on the sandy land. Don’t build it too near the shore. It might be kinda nice, but you’ll have to build it twice, yes you’ll have to build your house once more…”

Today I sing a different song. It goes something like “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise Him above, ye heavenly host! Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” It started last August when we learned how the different emergency agencies behaved during storms. It was very stressful. So last weekend when the river started to rise and MM was camping with L, at God’s prompting, I purged our basement (the first floor is supposed to stay empty) of junk and organized what was to stay down there (there’s a high shelf!). I felt silly on Saturday after cleaning the extra room in our house because the river didn’t rise in to the basement.

It wasn’t until Tuesday when I called MM back home from camping that I felt slightly vindicated. I drove home from town to begin preparing for the rain that was to come. About the time my neighbors and I gathered all our potted garden to our patios (tell me we don’t know that it’ll flood!) and emptied all the basement bottom shelves and makeshift tables from last weekend, MM shows up to handle all the man work. It seems the work never stopped. We believed we were ready for whatever would come. So much so that I brought our boys back to the house (L stayed out camping with my dad) on Wednesday. Why on earth would I bring them back except I think that we’ll stay at the house through the flood?

We woke up Thursday morning with the river over our driveway by about a foot or two. Wednesday it had been only ankle deep and rising. I worked on work a little while MM worked on miscellaneous things around the yard. The rain fell and the river rose. The kids played around the house (what’s not covered with stuff from the basement) and I worked on important things like clean dishes and clean floors. Oh, and then the electric company made an error and turned off our power instead of power across the river! I spent the afternoon making phone calls to restore our power and finally succeeded. After dinner with our neighbors (had to wade with kids on my shoulders to get there!), we waded back to go to bed.

You’d think that we’d have known the signs. When we went to bed the river was still rising. MM was scheduled to return to L and break camp on Friday. Certainly we could wait until morning and get out of the house safely – why didn’t we take the cars up the road before now? Then it’d just be a boat ride to the cars and we’d be to safety. It was 3 a.m. when I woke with a start and called the dam. The river is rising and not going down anytime soon. It was two inches up the wheels of our neighbor’s truck. Everyone must move their cars now. What possessed us all to wake up to walk their dog or call the dam can only be called God’s hand of protection. We didn’t know about the lower than our part of the road spots until Friday morning as we drove out of the neighborhood and encountered them with our truck and van. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in all my life. After we all made it out of the house and to the neighbors where we parked the boat trailer, MM and I had a moment – WOW. What on earth were we thinking?

I often wondered why our family doesn’t spend much time camping together. After all, the struggles you encounter as a family serve to draw you together as you search for solutions. Now I know why we don’t camp together (I just send Dad with one or more of them)- we encounter all our struggles together and find solutions as we live in our sometimes houseboat. Our family is being forged in the crucible of floods and life on the river!

as of right now, the river is 26.11 feet. It was 23.71 or so when we were leaving. That's right - it's up to the mailbox bottom now and gently rising. We're taking refuge at my parent's. The water might not recede until next week after all the Sunday rain...

And I really did say "This is life. If I thought it was supposed to be any different, I wouldn't live down here." For a copy of the picture see:

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=CD&Dato=20090402&Kategori=PHOTOS03&Lopenr=904020805&Ref=PH