UNTIL WE DIE, WE'RE IMMORTAL

"Are you okay?" some concerned friends asked after hearing about some of the typhoon damage over the news.

"As long as I stay indoors, I don't even know about what kind of damage was caused by the storm," I replied; "Okinawa has about 4 typhoons a year."

I told you about how, as a child, I often illustrated my parents' missionary prayer letters so once inadvertently drew my mom as an elephant climbing a ladder securing the home before a storm approached Okinawa.

I've blogged posts about our family's move when the earthquake, tsunami, and radiation fiasco of 2011 resulted in our family's evacuation from Fukushima and move just north of Tokyo.

But recently, I was reading about my freshman year in a college chapel, when a tornado hit the upper corner of the amphitorium, and I saw the far walls--they'd looked solid to me before--begin waving like drapery. I have never to this day seen anything like that. There was rushing wind (sound like a thousand freight trains) on the other side of that wall. Memory is foggy.

I'm pretty sure someone on Security interrupted the speaker and announced over the speaker how we were all to leave our seats in orderly fashion and go back to our dorms, down to the basement. Leaders checked attendance and safety while we sat there and sang choruses until things quieted down.

I still remember two roommates who were personality opposites. The emotionally charged one, when leaving the building, seeing a large corner of the building that had been lifted and then deposited nearby, decided the end of the world had come. She screamed WE'REGOINGTODIEWE'REGOINGTODIE and frantically wrapped herself around one of the entrance poles. Her roommate, cool as a cucumber, peeled her off and walked her back to the dorm, where she sat trembling, wet (it was raining), and speechless for a while.

Our leader and remarked how it seemed Linda had brought in Susan, "bless her heart" (she always said that), like a poor drenched puppy.

I don't know if it'll be by Typhoon, Tsunami, or Tornado, but we ARE going to die some day. Susan was kinda right there. But Daddy used to say until God wants to take us to Heaven, we can't die. Until then, we are immortal. J