UPFRONT August 18, 2008 Issue

'Thus far and no farther'

MAIKE BYRD, CHILDREN'S EDITOR

The severest weather conditions I've ever experienced happened while I was a schoolgirl living in northern Germany. Growing up in a small town two kilometers from the North Sea, I'd heard many stories about the fierceness of the sea and people's efforts over generations to build ever stronger and better dikes to protect themselves from storm tides. But all of the stories of broken dikes had taken place in the past, and I never imagined it could happen in our time.

Then one day in February the wind started picking up, and hurricane-strength gusts whipped through our area, wreaking havoc in its path. The raging sea tore holes in dikes all along our coast. The whole region went into a state of emergency. People living in the immediately endangered lowlands behind our dikes were evacuated. The military was called in for assistance, and many volunteers, including my dad, were trucked out to the shore to strengthen crumbling dikes with sandbags.

In the middle of all this, I remember my mother taking care of customers who made it, through this weather, to our grocery store, comforting fearful evacuees, and encouraging all to trust in God's good power, despite what appeared to be happening. High winds continued through the following morning, when the noon tide was expected to be at its highest and it was feared that the dikes would break.

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