Our Indoor Swimming Pool...

We experienced first hand what it would be like if we had an indoor swimming pool! In other words we had a crisis at our house. It was finally a nice day outside and Adam decided he would wash his truck. He gathered everything and put the spray nozzle on the hose and went to work. Myself and the kids were outside enjoying the sun filled day. Adam mentioned a few times that the pressure was really low. After he was finished, I told him that maybe I would wash the van as well. I told him to just leave the water on and I would be just a minute before I would start. He said for some reason he felt he should walk over and turn it off. When we went over to the outside faucet he hollered at me to come over. There was water everywhere along the brick and window seal. We both had a sick feeling and realized why the pressure was so low. Adam told Kourtney to run downstairs a check. It seemed like only seconds before we heard Kourtney let out a loud scream! We both went running downstairs and before we knew it water was over the top of our shoes. I think back to that very instant and it is a blur. We grabbed furniture and what ever else was there and started moving it out. We quickly realized that there was water in all three bedrooms, the bathroom, hall, and laundry room. The only dry room was the family room. Adam shut the main water line off and realized the water had entered down by Kourtney's room. After checking it out we found that the hose bib had been frozen inside and when Adam turned the faucet on, it caused to much pressure and split the pipe, thus shooting water down inside the basement. We grabbed the shop vacs and stated sucking up water. People started showing up to help and I still don't know to this day how they found out and how they arrived so quickly. After dumping eleven sixteen gallon wet vac's, we started pulling up carpets. The pads were saturated and we knew they had to be torn out. A gentleman around the corner was there in a flash helping Adam fix and replace the broken pipe.

I think about this experience and we quickly realized that blessings come in many ways and forms that don't really seem like blessings. I will explain.

These past few months, we as a family decided we were really going to put the law of service to the test. Adam has been doing many hours of mechanical service for people who have not had the means to fix their vehicles. Our own projects had been put on the "back burner" as you could say. Adam says his first thoughts were: Why did this happen to us? I have really been trying to do service for others. Then he realized he better quickly humble himself before someone with higher authority did it for him! :) We called a carpet company to come give us a quote on how much is was going to be to replace pad and re stretch the carpet. The company said they have a guy that works for them, but in situations like this(not terribly big jobs) he does side work for people like this. He came to give a quote and right when he was telling us how much it was going to be our telephone rang. I looked at the caller ID and thought I knew what the phone call was about by the name that came across. I told Adam I would call it back when the carpet guy had left. He told us that he would charge us around $200 for labor and then the cost of the pad on top of that. Were looking around $500. One expensive car wash! I returned the phone call shortly after and was asked if I could do an casting, of a fairly young individual who had been killed in an accident, down at the mortuary and it would need to be done that day. I said yes and gathered my things together. When I arrived they asked me if I could do ten castings of this person's hand so each one of the family members could have one.

Long story longer ;) on how this was truly a blessing for us. I was able to do all ten castings with only three molds. I have never been able to do that before because of the process. For the cost of all the material used, I was reimbursed more than plenty to pay for the carpet and pad. The carpet man had told us when he was here that were were extremely fortunate that the water only damaged the pad and nothing else. He had the same thing happen to him last year and it collapsed his upper floor and made it look like a chicken coop in his basement. The wonderful neighbor that fixed the pipe told Adam that the split couldn't have been in a better place. It was an easy fix. It was clean water that flooded the basement instead of the dirty pressurized irrigation water which would have ruined the carpet throughout the basement, and in retrospect would have been a major expense. None of our bedroom furniture had water damage. This experience gave others the opportunity to serve, the man that replaced the carpet really needed some extra money at that very time. The hand casting, I was told, brought a lot of peace to the family, and helped them get through a hard unexpected tragedy. We were blessed to not have had to use savings to replace pad or have our homeowners insurance raised because of making a claim. We truly believe that this event was just a small part of a plan. We are so grateful for all the help that people offered, and gave to us. I think this has made me look at trials and situations differently.