The Fire

Friends & family,

This post has been a long time coming.  It’s been hard to process all that’s been happening lately…the good news is, that means God is moving, and he is moving a LOT!  But rather than try to give you a buffet of the happenings from the last few weeks, I want to tell you one story, about one night, that changed the lives of everyone on our squad, and those around us…

The sun was setting on our last day in the Dominican Republic.  Month one of the World Race had ended.  And as I rounded the corner to the usually quiet street in the neighborhood where we had been staying, my mind was occupied with so many details:  packing, traveling, trying to digest all that God had done in the Dominican, and looking forward to all he was going to do in Ecuador.  But when I saw the scene that was suddenly before me, I stopped dead in my tracks.  Fire trucks.  Flashing lights.  People everywhere.  Confusion.  And then…the charred remains of our neighbor’s belongings.  My squadmates were interspersed in the crowd, talking with people from the community, expressions lingering somewhere between shock and disbelief.   One of my teammates came over & filled me in:  our neighbor had left to pick up dinner, and while she was gone a fire started from the TV.  It wasn’t long before the house was engulfed in flames, trapping her four young children inside.  By God’s providence, my team’s plans that night hadn’t turned out as expected, and as they left the house an hour late, they saw the fire.  The details of what happened next are kind of a blur, but what I can tell you is that it ends in my teammate Joel running into the house and rescuing the two youngest twin girls.  They had been trapped in the room where the fire started and was the strongest.  From what my other teammates tell me, the image of them reaching frantically through the barred windows, flames and smoke pouring out behind them, was horrific.  As the team tried desperately to pull them out, do anything that would save them, out of nowhere a pair of arms swooped the girls up from behind before anyone even had the chance to realize that Joel had entered the house. 

Within minutes, the fire was extinguished…somehow with only a 5-gallon bottle of drinking water we had sitting at our house…before the fire trucks arrived.  When they surveyed the home, they found 2 completely full propane tanks near where the fire had started that somehow were untouched.  And even more miraculously, no one was hurt. I don’t know how that happens without God’s intervention.  Everything, every detail, was perfectly aligned and timed.  I’m sure none of my teammates woke up that morning expecting to save anyone or put out a house fire.  All they did was respond to the situation God put before them.  And we were able to spend the rest of the night caring for the family, cleaning up their home, making them food, comforting the kids, and praising God for his miraculous provision and protection over our Dominican friends. 

 

P.S.  The kids really liked playing with our headlamps!