Peace of mind...

A few nights ago I had a dream, no, a nightmare. One of those nightmares that was so scary that you wake yourself up. In any case, my family was in a situation where I knew it was not safe and I knew we had to leave immediately. I was in a panic because our 72 hour kits were not complete. We were not as prepared as I wanted to be.

I woke up with the determination to complete our 72 hour kits. We had most of the stuff we needed, but I needed to assemble it all. On Saturday (and then finishing up today) I put those together and I must say I feel so much better. I think the reason I had not finished those up was because I was overwhelmed. There have been many an enrichment night on the topic and I have also done research on the web and it was almost too much. Then when I was at my parent's house this spring my mom gave me a list that Ann Shelton had assembled. It was basically one page long -- that I could do. Now I just needed to figure out how best to adapt that to our family.

I ended up doing a smaller bag/backpack for each of the kids with just the basics. It contains food kit for 72 hours, water bottle (I know they would need more, but I figured that is what they could carry), t-shirts, sweats (they could be easily cut off for shorts in the summer), underwear, socks, and shoes. I made a little bathroom kit (hand towel that has a tie to go around their waist with little pockets) for all the bathroom stuff like soap, toothpaste and toothbrush, brush and comb, shampoo, and lotion. Then I put in a quart size ziploc, a safety whistle, solar blanket, wind-up flashlight, tealight candles and lighter, small rain poncho, hand/foot warmers, hand sanitizer, tissues, and chapstick. I also printed out a recent family picture, printed their name and birthday and circled their face in the picture. On the back I listed Ken's name and cell phone number, my name and cell phone number, and then taped a copy of their insurance card. I laminated that and a list of family phone numbers and put it in their bag. I thought that information could be helpful if, heaven forbid, we were separated.

Ken and I have a similar bag with all the above mentioned stuff and in addition we have a family bag. In this rolling duffel bag I put a regular blanket, coloring books for the kids, card games, notepad and sharpie, insect repellent, sunscreen, first aid kit, batteries, more candles, water tabs, plastic sheeting, extra garbage bags and ziplocs, clothes pins, duct tape, hammer and nails, screwdriver, pliers, leather work gloves, and braided cord. I also I have another bag of extra food to supplement our 72 hour supply (I especially liked the individual cups of peanut butter and the tuna pouches). I am sure other things that I will continue to add, but I think this is a pretty good start. The last part of my project is scanning in all our important family documents and burning a CD for our kit (and another for a safety deposit box).

So in case of having to quickly evacuate our home we could just grab our 72 bags, a couple cases of water, our emergency cash, and our external hard drive and we could be on our way. I feel so much more at peace. I am grateful for church leaders that encourage us to be prepared. I testify of the words in the scriptures are true. "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear."