Thursday 13 October 2016

Hurricane Matthew and Go Cocks!

Last week hurricane Matthew honoured the south east of the US with a visit and it made sure its visit did not go unnoticed. Matthew arrived in South Carolina early Saturday morning. The first thing I noticed about the hurricane was on Friday evening. A few of us planned to drive to Columbia that evening to spend the weekend there to see the University of South Carolina Gamecocks Football team play the University of Georgia Bulldogs. Two friends from our Thursday evening bible study kindly treated us to this weekend. Unfortunately, as the weather worsened, we decided to call the weekend off and see if we could go to Columbia on Sunday for the match. Instead of driving to Columbia, we were invited to our friend's parents' house for an evening of games. Early Saturday morning, the internet stopped working and our carpark was flooded. By Saturday afternoon, the electricity went down. In the US, more so than in Europe, there is not much you can do without electricity. There was a plan for a movie night at the OM office, but as there was no electricity, we had to come up with other plans. That's how we ended up at one of the OM staff members' flat with whatever food we had managed to prepare before the power went down. We had a lovely evening. One of the positive things that often happens in crisis situations is that it brings people together. It has something special to spend the evening together with no other light source than a few battery powered torches. As most of the churches we usually go to had cancelled their services this Sunday, we had a plan to meet up at the OM office to have a time of worship, reading the Bible and prayer.  And in case the small congregation that normally meets at the OM office on Sundays, we would join them.

Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day weather wise. At 9.30 we gathered at the OM office where the Community Bible Fellowship happened to be meeting, so we joined them for their service. Apart from the OM'ers, there were 2 members of their congregation present, one of whom is also an OM'er. I have to say that I really enjoyed that service. I'm used to church services with 150-200 people with band led worship and to be in a small meeting room with just 15 people was kind of special. Instead of singing the latest worship songs projected on a screen, we sang hymns from a hymn book. It was refreshing and enriching to sing these theologically rich songs that have been written centuries ago. It was encouraging to share Bible verses with each other. It was just really good to have this kind of fellowship with each other.

As the weather was good, we were picked up by our friend to go to Columbia for the football game. Now, if you have never been to a Football game in the US, I can tell it's a happening. Even though it was a college match and not NFL, it beats the hell out of most top tier football matches in Europe. Even though the players are amateurs and students at their universities, they are treated with the same celebrity treatment as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The 80,000 seater stadium was fully sold out. The only reason there were empty places was that the game, which was originally scheduled for Saturday was rescheduled to Sunday due to hurricane Matthew and not everybody was able to make it on Sunday. The pre-game entertainment is as extravagant as you can imagine. A marching band is marching from a nearby field to the stadium and pretty much fills up a complete section. This visiting team comes with multiple buses with players, coaching staff, medical staff and even their cheerleaders. I would almost say these college teams work with budgets top tier Dutch professional football teams can only dream of. Anyways, the match. I don't know much about American Football. It's something to do with downs and offence and defence. Touchdowns, and that sort of things. Usually when I go somewhere there is some minor thing I forget to bring, which would prove to be very important later on. This time it was either sunglasses or a hat. As the sun was shining pretty much straight into my face, I saw hardly anything of the game. As I didn't understand much of the game anyways, that wasn't really a problem. The experience itself made it all worth it. In the end, Georgia won the game.

After the game, it was time to find a place to eat. We decided on a Japanese steakhouse. The first steakhouse we went to was fully booked with a waiting time of an hour, so we went to the next one. Here, we were promptly seated around a cooking station and ordered our drinks and food. I went for the filet mignon and chicken combination plate, including soup, shrimp appetiser, fried rice, veggies and a sherbet dessert. To increase the entertainment value, our friend told the chef at our table that one of the girls in our group had her birthday that day. Although she tried to convince the chef otherwise, she soon gave up and just enjoyed the experience. It was a great and fun meal. The chef did a great job entertaining us and the food was delicious.

Throughout the day, we kept in touch with Florence for updates on the situation there. We were told that if the electricity was not restored by Monday morning, we couldn't go to work. As we still had our hotel booking, we decided to check in and spend the night there. If the electricity was still down the next day, we would spend the day in Columbia as we planned to do on Saturday. If it was back up again, we would drive back to Florence the next day and go to work as usual. Our friend brought some games, so once we checked in to our room, it was time for a game of Catan. It was a hard fought game and we had loads of fun playing it. By the time we finished the game, it had gone past midnight. At this time, we received news from Florence. The electricity was back up again at the OM Ministry Centre, which meant we had to go to work the next day. At this point, we briefly considered to check out and drive back to Florence again, but soon decided to stay and leave early next morning. We went to bed, the girls in the bedroom and the guys in the living room on the couch and the floor, slightly disappointed as we were looking forward to spending the day in Columbia. The next morning, we woke up at 6.20, had breakfast and were ready to head to Florence by 7 am. Before we left, I made a quick phone call to make a final check, and a last hope of being able to stay in Columbia. It confirmed that the power had indeed been restored in our part of Florence and with that knowledge, we headed back to Florence for just another day at work.

This Sunday in Columbia was probably the best day I had so far. It was not just the football game, but it was a great time together and we had the chance to get to know each other better. Although we had great days out in the weeks before, this was the first time we had the chance to sit down around a table, playing games and eating together and talk with each other. I really feel I made new friends this day and we are already planning future trips. I'm looking forward to them already!

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