Quite a storm today- I don’t know if it reached OH, but it did move fast.  The sky went dark around 4PM and pouring rain followed.  Hovever, as I mentioned the storm moved fast, so within an hour it was pretty much over.  I was actually in Waukegan at the time.  We started to walk the lot when Rene took one look at the sky and decided we were done.  Good thing, because two minutes later the rain came down.  I headed home, no incidents praise God, and stopped at a local electronics store to wait out west-bound rush-hour traffic which was much worse than usual.  I actually had to turn left off of the expressway because the right-turn lanes were backed up beyond the exit toll!  One main street further south, the traffic was no better, so I turned south on 21 and went to Abt Electronics where I bought a needed new dehumidifier and played a couple games of Ms. Pac-man and Galaga which were set on free play.

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Once home, I learned that a local resale shop was struck by lightning and burned to the ground- yikes.  The lightning strike was actually witnessed by one of the pastors at my church across the street, the one who oversees all of youth and children’s ministries.  There was no mention of injuries or deaths in the article I read, praise God, though at the time of the ABC news segment they didn’t know.  The article mentioned insurance, but only for the building as the goods inside were all donated.  I know the Lord will use this as a ministry opportunity, especially with the church being right by the store, but it will obviously be awhile before the store is up and running again.  Just take a look at the news segment at ABC News Chicago:

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ABC News:  Fire destroys Palatine retail store

Derek