Houston Woman Finds Blessings in The Midst of Harvey
Divya Joseph
“It can’t get any worse than this,” Rossie Reyes said to her son, as she looked back at the year that brought her a divorce and a diagnosis of an autoimmune disease. When she uttered the words, she didn’t know a massive hurricane would soon hit her hometown, Houston, Texas and destroy her home.
Hurricane Harvey dropped a record 50 inches of rain in late August, causing flooding that displaced an estimated 30,000 people from their homes, according to FEMA. Yet, even in this tragedy God had some amazing blessings in store for Reyes.
When Reyes and her two sons, Jose, 24, and Joshua, 17, first saw the news that warned of hurricanes hitting their area they didn’t think much of it. They figured it would be just another hurricane season in Texas. After two days of heavy rains Reyes was still confident that the situation was manageable. It wasn’t until the third day when her panicked son Jose woke her informing her that they had to evacuate that she realized the seriousness of Harvey.
As the water level rose in the first floor of their house, Reyes and her boys took cover on the second floor frantically trying to reach friends and church members for help. “There was so much water downstairs that the refrigerator tipped onto a counter and made loud noises like gun shots being fired,” says Reyes, “I was a bit sacred but didn’t want to show it because I didn’t want to scare my boys.”
Reyes and her sons watched anxiously as boats and canoes came to rescue their neighbors. Some church members said they were on their way but that was quite some time ago. The roads were flooded and they weren’t sure how help would come for them. “I saw the movie Titanic and that is what I equated would happened to us,” says Reyes, “In the movie you see the water rising and the boat collapsing. That is what it feels like to be in a house that is flooding.”
Finally, a community member on a boat helped Reyes, her two sons, their cat and their Labrador mix get to dry land. “When I reached the drop off point, I looked around and saw no road signs, that is how much the water had risen,” says Reyes. “All I saw were a few people with a garbage bag of emergency clothes. That is when I realized I was homeless.”
As she stood there feeling she had hit rock bottom she still held onto the promise of Jeremiah 29:11 which says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Reyes feels God kept his promise in her life in all the kindness and care she received from others in the aftermath of the hurricane. She says she was touched by the numerous acts of kindness from the church members who let her family stay at their place to those who gave her money for rebuilding to all the overwhelming words of encouragement from friends on social media.
“Days after the hurricane, I walked into my house and when I saw the condition I couldn’t help but cry,” she says. “There was furniture that was on one end of the house that was on the other end of the house. There was a lot of damage. There was even a fish and two snails in my house. I kept thinking of how we were going to be homeless for a good long time, but there were people in our church who stepped in and helped us out.”
The youth team from the Houston Northwest Seventh-day Adventist Church in Spring, Texas, where Reyes attends, came and cleared debris and broke down the damaged walls in her house. A church member lent her a car to use from his rental. The biggest miracle was that her husband who she was set to divorce returned to help her and they reconciled.
“There was a storm and we lost a lot of stuff, but we gained so much more,” Through this experience, I gained such strong faith. I have been a Seventh-day Adventist for over 20 years. I don’t know how strong my faith was all those years, but today I know I am a faithful person. I can say with certainty that God is with us and He will take care of us because I saw him do it.”
Reyes, a school teacher, has returned back to work and says that in the aftermath of the hurricane she sees so many who are still panicking on how they are going to rebuild their lives. However, she feels absolutely calm and optimistic about the future. When people ask her what her plans of rebuilding are she says, “I am taking one day at a time. For now, we are putting the walls up and I am happy about that. Every day I wake up and surrender my day to Him. This year was the one that taught me that as long as we trust God we can get through anything.”