When we left you, it was July 2007…  But I forgot to tell you about the wind storm in Phoenix!  So we’ll back track a little and fill that story in…  Hmmm… let’s start with a quiet morning at the conference center.

It was the last day of conference and most people were in meetings so the booth area where Pat and I were sitting was quiet.  Pat was beading as she usually does during down time at conferences…  I looked out the windows across from where we were sitting… saw that the wind was picking up and walked over and opened the door.  The flags were whipping around their poles and tumble weeds were actually blowing across the parking lot!  I didn’t realize they still did that!  I thought that was just an old western movie happening…  Then I noticed that there was a “fog” of dust in the distance in the general direction of where our RV was parked!  “Oh NO!”  I thought, “Our RV awning is extended!”  I turned to Pat, grabbed my car keys and told her I needed to go!  When I got to the car, I could tell that the wind was really strong so I headed to the RV.  There was a grayish brown fog in the distance blocking the view of the mountains.  By the time I got to the RV Park, the 20 minute later, the storm had passed, and as I rounded the corner approaching our RV, I saw other RVs with awnings blown off.  My heart sank as I saw our RV with the awning pulled loose and blown over the top of the RV!  The side of the RV was scratched and the supports were in pieces on the ground.  And the most immediate concern was that the awning was lying over the air conditioning unit on the roof!  And it wouldn’t take long to burn out the unit in this heat!  Did I mention that it was 117 degrees outside?  And then we would be up the creek, so to speak!  I knew that I couldn’t get the awning off of the RV by myself (it’s 12 feet high) so I walked down the row until I found some guys outside piecing together their awnings.  I told them my situation and all 4 of them dropped what they were doing and climbed up on top our RV, pulled down the awning and put our broken supports back together!  I was stunned!  With the exception of the scratches on the side, you couldn’t even tell that the awning had been blown off!  Then one of the men gave me the bolts from the awning support and said, “If you can find these at a hardware store, I’ll put them on for you.”  I thanked them all repeatedly! 

The next day, I returned with the needed bolts and our RV neighbor and his son re-attached the awning supports!  Angels truly are everywhere!