Gilbert Thurston

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Inside Today’s Experience (Hurricane Irene edition)

August 29, 2011 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

  • Well that was interesting.
  • Woke up at a little before 6am when the power went out.
  • Because of an underground steam that’s under our house, we have two sump pumps that run a lot.
  • I mean a lot…our whole neighborhood thinks we do weird things because were always pumping water into the street.
  • So with a big rain from the Hurricane and now no power I knew the chances for flooding had just increased exponentially (no pun intended…ok yes it was).
  • So our morning began by in the dark basically moving everything from the downstairs to the upstairs.
  • Yea fun…not.
  • Of course then my phone started blowing up with calls and texts from team members who were without power and wondering what we were going to do.
  • In the midst of that, my answer was made easier when the theater called to say that they had no power either.
  • Now it was an issue of figuring out what time it would have to come back on to have a full Experience.
  • We also were calculating how to have a scaled back Experience in the theater with no stage lighting or projection…just an acoustic guitar and preaching.
  • But as time continued to pass by, the likelihood of something happening diminished.
  • Finally I drove to the theater to check it out for myself.
  • The poor manager had been there since 3am since a group of people decided to break in that night.
  • Not condoning it but actually that was pretty smart on their part…finally intelligent criminals.
  • Ummm wait…except for the part where once they were in they didn’t actually get anything.
  • In any case, a small group of people had come out and together we decided a little before 9 to cancel.
  • Thankfully Chad’s house still had power so I was able to go there to get internet access and try to get the word out.
  • Guess the only people that worked for were people that had smart phones but I doubt many were coming anyway.
  • After I left Chad’s house I went back to the theater just in case people showed up at 10am.
  • I pulled a couple of chairs out near the entrance where sunlight was shining through and waited to see who might show up.
  • I figured I could do a couple minute devotional then send people home.
  • Funny thing was 3 local pastors and families showed up who had cancelled their own services and hoped to check us out.
  • I told them what was going on and they decided to try elsewhere.
  • Guess I don’t look like a good devotional guy!  :)
  • We did end up having 4 others show up…including a family visiting from out of town that I’ve known for many years…in fact they knew Lisa when she was in elementary school.
  • So the 5 of us prayed together and then I shared a combination testimony/lesson from Luke 15.
  • In some ways it was really cool…very informal…in fact I had a baseball hat on since I hadn’t showered or anything.
  • But here’s the important thing…it was still church.
  • Jesus said, “Wherever 2 or 3 gather together in my name, there I am in their midst”.
  • He was present, He was worshiped and His Word was taught.
  • Definitely a memory I’ll carry with me.
  • Two good things did come of the storm.
  • First, our basement didn’t flood and second we were able to head out for vacation a bit earlier than planned.
  • I’m typing this from Williamsburg, Va.
  • The internet just began working at the resort so hopefully it’s still good when I hit “publish” on this post.
  • A good chunk of the city is still without power.
  • It was an adventure finding dinner last night (2 1/2 hours).
  • We found a KFC that was open although you just had to take what they had, you couldn’t be picky.
  • We also went to a partially lit supermarket and picked through what food they still had/was not being thrown out.
  • They were running the cashiers and a couple of light off of generators…it was very eerie.
  • Nonetheless, we’re looking forward to some rest since our vacation earlier this summer wasn’t very restful since we had to renovate our previous house which had been trashed by our tenants.
  • Hope everyone has a great week…next week our worship pastor Bill Butler is going to be preaching…can’t wait to hear what God has laid on his heart!

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