It's been a few weeks since I've written, but I thought I'd blog a little about my latest adventure!
Last weekend, Luke and I had a Bible Bowl meet in Kansas City. This meet is always one of my favorites. Aside from the 10 hour bus trip, we always have a TON of fun! This was Luke's second trip as a new Bible Bowl player, but the rest of the team followed up with a few more newbie initiation pranks (involving packets of mustard from Sonic and salt in his Coke :-).
It's been our tradition for a couple of years now to stop for dinner at the Oak Park Mall in Kansas City. After we eat, the sponsors always give us an hour or so to do a little window shopping. All of the girls, with the exception of a few, link arms and head downstairs to DEB where we have our annual prom dress extravaganza!! :-) It's really not that big, but we LOVE it and look forward to this time every year. After a few minutes of flying ruffles, sparkles, and petticoats, we emerge from the dressing rooms and ooh and aah over everyone's dresses. This year, the theme for the pictures was blue, so we each chose a blue dress and took MILLIONS of pictures!!! This was my dress for this year:
If everyone gives me permission to do so, I will post pictures of us sometime in the near future.
Sadly, we hung up our dresses and continued on our way to Stony Point Christian Church where our competition was being held. Frankie, Miranda, and I stayed at an awesome house that had a GIGANTIC basement! Being from Texas, we think basements are the coolest things EVER!! The next day's competition was long and grueling, but I think we were all pretty satisfied with how we did, considering the fact that both the test and the questions are harder than at Nationals!
After taking a couple million team pictures, we headed on the highway to find something to eat. Just as we were leaving, the rain started to fall and the wind picked up significantly. Unbeknown to us kids, there was a tornado warning for the area, so we stopped at a HUGE McDonald's off the turnpike and settled down to eat. The McDonald's was completely surrounded by windows, and we could see the rain coming down in torrents and the wind blowing it in all directions. The restaurant started filling up with people trying to get off the road because they could no longer see to drive in the rain.
After about 20 minutes or so, the adults started coming around to the tables and telling us to obey immediately and not ask questions if they told us to get in the bathrooms for shelter. We agreed to comply and then returned to our hamburgers and conversations. About 5 minutes later, the power suddenly went out and everything got very quiet. We all looked out the window and saw a bunch of debris swirling around across the highway from us. Everyone started yelling and we made a mad dash toward the bathrooms. Because there were so many people in the restaurant, the bathrooms started filling up quickly and it got very hot and stuffy in there! In my 16 years of living, I have had to get in the bathroom during a tornado warning only a handful of times and nothing has ever happened, so this was a totally new experience for me! After a few minutes of excitedly talking amongst ourselves, we decided to sing a few hymns to calm everyone down. It definitely worked!! We had to stay in the bathrooms for about 45 minutes, so we sang quite a number of hymns. Once we were finally given permission to come out, many people came up to us and thanked us for the songs. We definitely felt the presence of God in that (seemingly) tiny bathroom! There's nothing like being a light in the midst of a storm!
Later, we found out that there had actually been 2 tornadoes that had passed over us and destroyed a few farmhouses along the highway. Quite an exciting and nerve-wracking addition to our trip, let me tell you! Fortunately, there was no damage to the McDonald's or to our 30 passenger bus (lovingly dubbed "Old Faithful") which also held all of our belongings. But I realized something during that little episode: I would rather have everything in that bus swept away by that tornado than have anyone lost or hurt. The Bible Bowl kids and sponsors are like my second family. We do everything together and depend on each other; they're some of my best friends and the greatest people in the world. I love them like I love my own family!
Anyway, the rest of that day went off without a hitch! That night, we stayed at Countryside Christian Church in Wichita, KS. There are many stories to tell about this church, but I won't go into anyone of them. :-) (HAHA, Frankie & Grace!!) Since we don't have competition the next day, the AWESOME sponsors always let us stay up late and watch movies, talk, and play basketball in the gym. That night (or the next morning, I should say) at about 1 am, an alarm suddenly went off!! I'm not sure whether it was the fire alarm or the burglar alarm, but we immediately assumed it was the fire alarm and the sponsors told us to run outside and get on the bus.
Let me describe the scene for you: one of the sponsors had already gone to bed and the rest of us were just standing in the hallway listening to the alarm, unsure of what to do with ourselves. 3/4 of the girls were already in their pajamas, the boys were dripping sweat from playing basketball, and Frankie and I were just heading down the hall to take our showers. I hate to think what might have happened had we already been in the shower!!! We were very thankful for that, let me tell you! :-)
So... we all sat on the bus talking while the sponsors searched for the "fire", only to come back and tell us that the church had a defective alarm system and it had been going off sporadically all week... they were coming to fix it on Monday. Oh joy! Thankfully, it didn't go off anymore while we were there, but I wonder how the churchgoers fared during the service that day!
Well, after all that excitement, the rest of the trip was pretty boring. We even made record time getting our stuff loaded and getting home. I think we were all anxious to reach Texas before any more calamity befell us! Thankfully, nothing else happened.
So, that was my weekend: Fabulous!!!
<3 Milo
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