I’m sorry I can’t send separate msgs right now but I want you to know how much it means to have all your thoughts and prayers via emails and phone, with all of us here. Truly, it is a trying time and as we struggle your spirit comforts.

As you know, our city of Minot is overwhelmed with all that we have to do to keep our heads above water (pun intended)! About 5000 homes have water on main floor and/or above, about 12,000 are evacuated and are with family, friends or in shelters at our university dome, Catholic High School, or city auditorium. Presently, we have only one route from north to south and vice versa, period, so no travel is advised. My son, John and his dog are moved in with me as he is on the edge of the mandatory evacuation zone and the water is at his intersection. He has 6-12″ varying seepage (clean water, Praise the Lord) in his basement and son-in-law Dan is monitoring the pumps, vacumning the water, determined to not let too much become soggy; the ground being saturated does not allow us to do much about drying out. We had moved up everything, appliances, etc. earlier in the week. Grandsons Seth and Chauncy’s home that they rent out since they no longer live in Minot, has seepage and my son-in-law Dave, their dad, is pumping and vacumning there, the mighty Souris River just two houses from theirs. We really are fortunate compared to all the sad stories, yet hope is so evident even in those stories. This looks like an all-summer-long thing and many most likely will lose their home, this in spite of a housing shortage in town and the area all around. Most businesses are located the opposite side of town and of course those lower are inundated, so that we conserve (where could we shop without inching in our cars for 2 hours on the bypass?) and yesterday the city water supply became contaminated – yes, boil the water. At the end of the press conference yesterday after a state health rep talked about boiling water, our city engineer says, ” Volunteers, National Guardsmen, all of us are everywhere and outdoors eating, wiping our hands on our dirty clothes, licking our fingers and they expect us to boil the damn water!”

Our pastor, Father Fred will say Mass at the Knights of Columbus hall this morning, great comfort! Our church is heavily diked and we pray it will survive, however our parish school immediately south of it has water to the first floor; everything had been removed of that level previously. At least 4 of our public schools’ dikes breached so that they are covered with water, as are parks and most of the state fairgrounds, praying that the diked buildings stay dry. There is some humor here and there: of our beautiful sunny day, one young reporter says, “It’d be a great day to take the children to the park if there were one to go to.”

Continue to pray for us, please? May God bless you all. Love, Alice

When everybody on earth was dead and waiting to enter Paradise , God appeared and said, “I want the men to make two lines. One line for the men who were true heads of their household, and the other line for the men who were dominated by their women. I want all the women to report to St. Peter.”

Soon, the women were gone, and there were two lines of men.

The line of the men who were dominated by their wives was 100 miles long, and in the line of men who truly were heads of their household, there was only one man.

God said to the long line, “You men should be ashamed of yourselves, I created you to be the head of your household! You have been disobedient and have not fulfilled your purpose! Of all of you, only one obeyed. Learn from him.”

God turned to the one man, “How did you manage to be the only one in this line?”

The man replied, “My wife told me to stand here.”

Happy Midsummer Day to you all,