We just want to start out by saying thanks to our Lord for His amazing protection over our family.  We are safe in Sentani to decompress and rest after being a part of a pretty incredible story of God blessing the socks off us almost literally through a somewhat traumatic experience.  The timing of the earthquake in Lombok for our family was such that we were able to evacuate the house almost immediately all expect for Franklin.  There was some tense moments of not knowing if we had just lost our oldest son as the rest of us huddled outside in the small courtyard.  He did finally respond and was able to get out between the initial shakers not sure if it was between #1 and #2 or #2 and #3 after it all started. I don’t know if this is my imagination creating this or not, but I have a mental picture of him exiting the building as the ceiling fell on the stairs behind him.  In all of this we all had managed to get out of the house barefoot with broken glass everywhere with only some possible glass slivers in the feet.

After the dust settled from the first main round I started to make quick trips into the first floor area to retrieve our belongings.  We spent the rest of the night on the mattress we pulled out of the master bedroom on the main floor.  In the morning I was able to do work similar on the second floor with quick trips gathering the children’s belongings.  The end result was we were able to recover almost everything with only a few minor things that were not located or in a location not accessible in a reasonable safe manner.  The family did well watching my back while I was inside and would very quickly let me know when things would start shaking again with the aftershocks.  Just when we got the timing down of the aftershocks or so we thought their frequency would change. They seemed to hit every ten to twenty minutes all night long with a short hour window in the early morning were we had only minor movement. And when we left the area at nine that morning we were still have pretty strong aftershocks happening.

Please continue to pray for the locals. As we were able to connect in a small way with them through this.  It was hard to leave knowing what struggles and destruction they have in front of them.  We also recognized that we were not able to help in our position there and would create more of a burden being 5 more mouths that would need food, water and shelter.  Thankfully, we were able to share with them some extra food and water that we had left. With heavy hearts we departed praying that God would be glorified through this.  I don’t know the extent of the testimony we left behind only knowing that the local neighbors took note that God had protected us as we left with most all our stuff and no significate injuries.  Initially before we left we were told that there were injuries but no deaths in the neighborhood however this afternoon I did receive word from the local manager for the villa that a 7 month old in the community had perished and the aftershocks are still continuing to shake things.

I see this as a clear display of God’s loving protection for our family.  I pray that by no action of ours but just simple display of His protection for our family will bring Glory to Christ’s name.