Today's Update...

Hotel Willis is open for business. Some friends that lived by the church are staying with us until the water receeds to their road. We have been working hard today in the basement and almost all the trim is up except for the closet under the stairs and the bedroom.

We did spend a few minutes today in the closet under the starts as we had the tornado sirens go off. We once again got another .6 inches of rain and HAIL! The new stations have been on all day talking about the floods. The anchors look awful since Cedar Rapids is under a no water use unless absolutely necessary. We have officially hit the 500 year flood.

The interstates around us are closed due to water over them - duh. Cedar Rapids is just 13 miles north of us, but in order to get there right now we would have to trek over to Des Moines on I-80, then past Ames on I-35 to Hwy 20, past Jason's house and Parkersburg and through Waterloo and turn south on I-380 and come down to Cedar Rapids. Sounds easy enough.... It is like a 250 mile detour. At it is probably the only route still open except for the part between here and DM closed :( Oh well - stay home.

The Univ of IA told all non-essential employees to stay home. Jason is just one of those people - but he still gets paid! Yipppeeeee!

I will close out tonight with some heart wrenching pictures of the church taken at about 2:00 today. You can visit all of today's picture here.

Taken by two pastors this afternoon.

From the stage looking up to the sound booth. The doors lead out of the worship center.

Doors that lead into the worship center.


We haven't even crested yet. We still have about 3 days til it levels off and that is without any new rain!