The OOBS by CC Raz (electronic reader TXT) 📖

7/1

Summer's officially half over. And I just...
     First, I'll apologize for last night. I was just... angry and frustrated and tired and... and tired. I'm a lot better now though. I can breathe and think rationally and all that. So... sorry about all that... Anger and confusion last night. I'm still mad at you for making me decode all those sentences about dancing, and then in the middle of the message, give me tips on how to decode the message. Because... well, obviously I'd found a way to decode it or I wouldn't have known what that said. And it was just taking me forever, not because I couldn't figure out the code, but because I was being bombarded with noise and Jake kept shoving his iPod in my face to show me pictures and I'd lose my place and have to find it before I could move on and all that. So when all you talked about was dancing, it was nearly as frustrating.
     I'm going to let Bailey read the letters. I know you said that it was for me. But there's so much of it that I just can't make sense of. And I need a second input. Maybe she'll be able to figure out the codefor that one letter. You know? I dunno. I just... can't do it by myself. It just confused me so much and maybe she'll understand better. It also might help if I tried reading it before 11 PM. But we'll just ignore that little piece. :)

But enough about that. We have... Much more important things to talk about.
     I don't know how much you know about the Yarnell fire. But there are 19 firefighters dead. 18 were the Prescott Hotshots. All of Yarnell has been evacuated and almost ALL of it has been burned to the ground. Homes, businesses, the middle school. Gone. Zero containment.Triple digit weather, low humidity. You know, Arizona. And yesterday, it was obviously too windy to get anywhere with fighting that fire. I pray that it isn't nearly as windy today. Because... Gwen, if you go on the highway,and up that hill, which is REALLY windy and not straight at all, it's only 25 miles from my house to Yarnell. Um... that highway is the farthest thing from a sraight line, and the fire isn't going to take the highway. This is just.. too close.
     We go to school with so many people from Yarnell, and from Congress. Chandra lives in Congress. What's she gonna do if her house burns down? Homes are gone, and busnesses. Yarnell used to be such a cute little town. And now it's just GONE? Overnight, it tripled in size. 2,000 acres to 6,000 acres. Overfarmingnight. It's already coming way down the hill and just...
     Josh will probably be sent to help fight that fire. Bobby might be coming down to help fight (He came down for the Big Lake fires). Groovey Moses, Gwen. This is... so many people are at risk. Homes, businesses, schools. Just... gone. They have to completely start over.
     I prayed like crazy last night. That those families will all be okay. That they'll get it contained before it destroys any more homes or businesses. That the families who lost their homes will be able to get back onto their feet. That those firefighters didn't suffer for too long. Not that being burned is really a quick and easy death. But I dunno. Maybe God just made it so that they couldn't feel anything. They said that it could get up to 200 degrees inside the fire shelter.
     When Mom gets home from work we're going to go through everything we have and see what we can bring to the people. They're all camped out at the high school, an they told us not to bring any clothes or whatever over there, but my aunt was taking stuff to her church and they're getting it to the people. And... I mean we don't have much, but right now we have a WHOLE lot more than they do. I have shirts and pants that I never wear and are just sitting in my drawers... I don't need them. Those people do.

In the notebook, you said that Catholics believe that natural disasters like this are acts of God. First, I don't know a single Catholic who thinks that. And... really. I mean, natural disasters happen too often and are too disastrous for it to be God saying "Well, let's shake things up a little bit. Here's a hurricane. Tornado over there." No. And this... Natural disasters are EXACTLY that. A freak thing that happens in nature when the winds get too high or the forest gets to dry.
     Now, I do believe that God take these natural disasters and turns people's lives around and they end up doing someting that they never would have done if it weren't for the natural disaster that forced them to move or rebuild their homes or find a new employer. Or something. But I don't believe that God says, "Hey. Earthquake, why don't you go split buldins in half in California." No.

I have to go now. I'll be back later, I know that much. I just have thigs that I need to do, like sorting through all my clothes and figuring out what I don't need.

See you tomorrow, Gwen.
Still praying, still staying strong
Love,
CC Raz

7/1

Did you ever watch that show Kids Next Door? They were like spies or something and they saved the world and had this cool little treehouse thing that was their base. And they were just like these litle gangsta kids. And their names were Number 1, Number 2, 3, 4, and 5. And they always said it like "Numbah" and then one day Jake and I found out that it wasn't Number 1. It was ACTUALLY Numbah 1. It was the coolest thing ever.

But this isn't Kids Next Door. This is Girl at Library. Printing off more pages for you. Except this one will cost me like $2 instead of 8 because this is a lot smaller. :)

And I'll see you tomorrow. :D

Love you, Gwen. :)
Still praying, still staying strong.
Love,
CC Raz

PS- Now I have to go home and pack stuff. Mom's freaking out and thinks we'll get evacuated. If we do... at least we'll be prepared. But I'm trying to ahve a positive outlook on it all, and say that we won't get evacuated. Oh well. I guess we'll see when we see. Love you! Stay safe! Keep praying for the safety of all those families. :( It's just... so sad. It's hard for me to even wrap my mind around it. I was looking at pictures of the fire, and I have to keep reminding myself that this is only 20 miles away. And last night, watching the national news? It was crazy. But I gotta go now. So I'll see you soon. Love you!

7/1

There was a priest and two other men killed in Syria. The article didn't say when it happened, but it was recently. They were beheaded. But not just one quick, clean, swipe. Some guy went around with a little knife and sawed off their heads, then held them up to the crowd. The crowd gathered around, cheered them on, and took videos of it. When I clicked on the link, the video just started playing. You know how there are some things that are so horrible that you just CAN'T look away? You're thinking, "I shouldn't be watching this. This isn't something I should be watching" but you just can't look away.
      It took them 3 minutes to saw off one of the guy's heads.

And I know that this kind of thing happens every day in those countries. And this one isn't any more tragic than the others. But I didn't watch all the other ones on video.

I just talked to my mom about the whole thing. She made me feel better. Not better that this whole thing happened, or that I just watched it on video. But just... better. I was just so angry and sickened that those people could watch and record and cheer them on, and sit there and saw off 3 guys' heads. And being angry doesn't make me feel better.
     So Mom said, "You can't let this turn into hatred and anger. Because that means that Satan wins. You need to pray for those men that did that, pray for their souls, that they repent and TRULY repent, and TRULY come to know God, so that when they die, their souls go to Heaven instead of burning in Hell. It's hard, when something like this happens, to not just wish that they go burn in Hell, because that's what they deserve. But by you feeling that resentment, you are letting Satan win. Satan wants the souls in Hell. That's what he wants, and by you having that anger and hatred, you just make it that much easier for him." Now, of course she's not saying that those guys should get off scott free. That's where the lovely purgatory comes in, if they do choose to repent and come to know God. But... yeah. I dunno. It just made me feel better because now I don't feel quite so.. defeated, I guess? Like there's still SOMETHING that I can do besides sit here and hate them. And of course as soon as I read the title of the article, I just started praying. But it was only for the victims, not everyone else as well.

I'm gonna go say a rosary. I'll pray the rosary for:
-the 19 fallen firefighters
-the families of the firefighters
-the safety of everyone who's fighting the fires
-the families who lost their homes and businesses in the fire
-the three men who were killed in Syria, along with all the other innocent people who are killed in horrific ways by people who are only "serving their god"
-the souls of the men doing the killing, and the men and women who sit an watch, cheer on, and record the people being killed.

Oh, and of course there's so much more to pray about. But that's what I'll focus on right now.

I love you, Gwen. :) See you tomorrow.