Kathmandu Earthquake Blog 1

For us things started Friday night. At 10pm I stood up about to head for bed when I got a wave of nausea. By 11 I was puking my guts out. The night wore on with more of the same, when morning came it subsided for a little and then "changed directions." blah. I felt awful and just a trip to the bathroom which was only 10 steps made me very dizzy. About 11am I made my last trip. I changed out of my pj's, thankfully, and laid on the couch.

Saturday's are our church day, but since I was sick I was home with Emily (3 months) and Luke had our kids about a 10 minute walk away at our "office/church", which is on the bottom level of a 3 story building.

I was now laying on the couch watching a movie. At almost 12 the DVD layer turned off, my first thought was the power just went out. Sometimes as our electric goes from outside electricity to our battery back up this happens. Maybe 10 seconds later things started to shake violently. I was on the 2nd story of 3 in our house. I jumped up terrified and grabbed Emily. I was crying and praying out loud. I didn't know where to go. It really seems like this whole even took 10 minutes when really it was only seconds. I couldn't think of where to go, but I remember in our old house talking to the kids and saying if there was an earthquake they should lay down by the bunk bed in their room, so that is where I went.

I tried to grab a mattress off their bed but couldn't with Emily and the shaking so I just grabbed the comforter. I lay on the floor staring at the giant wardrobe I just knew was going to fall on us, but I didn't know what to do so I prayed. I finally stopped repeating myself and prayed for peace, instantly, I looked down and saw Emily's face and she just looked at me completely "at peace" and smiled and I was filled with peace inside and began to calm.

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, 

because he trusteth in thee." Isaiah 26:3

I'm not sure how long I was waiting and the shaking went on, but it seemed an eternity. The second the shaking was over I with Emily and the big blanket ran to the door, grabbed my shoes and took off down the stairs and outside. My neighbor who lives on the third floor with her 10 year old daughter were right behind me. I sat out in the yard on the ground.

After an earthquake the aftershocks/ tremors come almost instantly. It reminded me of your belly gurgling before you get sick and just rumbling. I could feel the ground underneath me still "gurgling" about every 30 seconds it would do some gurgling. Having never been through this I thought for sure it was going to erupt into something big again but it didn't right away. The neighbor (landlady) was right behind me with her hand on my shoulder. It was such a comfort. I can't begin to describe how hard it was not having the rest of my family right there with me. I waited maybe 5 minutes outside. Then Luke came. He didn't have the kids with him, but said they were safe with our church family in a nearby field. We quickly ran out of our gate to a field nearby. Not the same as the kids, that one was in the wrong direction from our house and too far, too dangerous for us to go to.

After I was settled in the field with Emily and our blanket Luke went back to stay with the kids. Tremors kept on coming. When you lay on the ground you can feel all of them. As they would come the people around would scream "aiyo, aiyo" which meant "it's coming." In the field I wasn't scared. There wasn't anything around to fall on us so it was comforting. I missed my kids, but I knew they were in good hands and we would be together soon.