at about 730 that night we were We were spread out over the house doing
different things, and we heard too loud two loud explosions that from
where I was sitting in the house, it seemed to echo quite a bit, and it
sounded like sounded like thunder. And we're all we're all sitting around
and
mentioned to Dad that that didn't sound like an ordinary grenade, which
we're quite used to hearing that by this time.
But all of us noticed, and all of us thought it was something different.
We were all woken up about five o'clock by lots of shooting and shelling
grenades, and such started about at five o'clock. As I already mentioned,
it was pretty solid. Some of it seemed to be pretty close. We estimated it
to be about a mile away near the UN compound that we were later to
evacuate to, and things got more serious. Shooting was going on near our
house. A grenade went by. I mean, a grenade went off. Three grenades
actually went off right right around our house, One right below there was
there was people yelling and chasing somebody telling somebody else to get
in get in his way, Get in his way. And then And then a grenade went off
and we didn't know what happened after that.
There was shooting during the night. At one time there was a really close
a shooting, which sort of had us all sitting up there, straight up with
our hair standing on him for a few minutes. But it was before lunch. Maybe
we were singing. We decided, you know, we wanted to sing some song for we
were singing Must have been fairly loudly, I don't know, But all of a
sudden, then there was a great lot of shooting right on the road, right
above our house. You and I said, You know, if you didn't want us to sing,
you just all you had to do was ask us. You didn't have to shoot at us, but
so after that, we didn't sing anymore. We were very, very quiet people.
It was really hard. There seemed to be like a lot of things we should be
doing, but we didn't have the ability to concentrate on any anything, but
it was really, really hard to concentrate. And I think now there's a lot
of things. Every one of our The common phrase that you hear is I wish I
had Oh, why didn't I and, uh, really terrified and felt like that? I
couldn't continue living in that kind of terror and went into our bathroom
and knelt down beside the bathtub and prayed enough or to really touch me
so that I wouldn't be, you know, just in terror and your heart just
doesn't even beat right. And you're going to wet your pants all the time
and you just can't live that way. And I really asked the Lord to help me,
to be able to put my trust in him and and to remove me, remove from me
that sense of of terror. And he did that. And it was It was a It was a
real blessing to feel the peace and the way the Lord did answer that
prayer just really almost immediately and in the night, about 12 o'clock,
Well, I didn't know what time it was, but in the night I woke up with a
real, real strong sense of oppression and terror and sort of shaking in a
kind of shock, like the way I felt and so scared, and I had no reason. I
don't think I dreamed anything. And I had no reason to be more frightened
than I was any other time. And I really felt like it was an attack of
Satan that he was Really he was telling me, You're not going to get out of
this alive, you're going to die and you're going and just quit praying.
Quit believing you're not going to get out of this alive. And I really
prayed then and asked for Jesus protection from the satanic attack and and
he and my piece returned and woke up a little bit after that. And he asked
him what time it was. I thought, I'm going to sit here until dawn. I
thought I could maybe hear some birds chirping, and it must be almost
morning, and I'm just going to sit up here until dawn and see, then woke
up. So I asked him what time it was, and he looked at his watch and said,
It's 1245 and I just wanted to hit him because I didn't want it to be in
the middle of the night. I wanted it to be morning. The night seemed so
long and also at that time there was there was some shooting and as near
as we could tell, we were being shot at the UN. Guys act like they thought
we were being all being shot at as well and they ran around and got in
their positions and I think returned fire. But we all were sitting out
there in the grass. So we were. Everybody said, you know, down, down and
and hit the hit the dirt. And so we're all laying as flat as we could,
which is not too flat for some of us. And Sam was laying there, too. He
was lying between two cars, but he laughed at us. He said he'd never
forget the picture of seeing all these missionary women laying there
trying to hide behind the blade of blade of grass in the yard. But as soon
as it slowed down a little bit while we got up and ran into the house. But
then I went out and sat on the balcony and then the tears began to come
and they have hardly stopped, but sometimes it gets better, and it has
been a real comfort to me and help and and and But I sat there and wept
and wept for
the people we left behind and for the things that I should have done for
them that I didn't do and many things that that, uh still I are over
painful. And but we're thankful that God is healing. And we're thankful
that hopefully, you know, we can learn some lessons. I don't know how this
will affect our lives in many other ways, but I know that it will
that
OK,
so
so I can
cool
mhm command,so