there is a saying about being ready for anything… oh how true this was last week! i had the awesome opportunity to spend seven days at a local ministry a little over an hour away. my afternoons were spent playing and loving on the children and orphans that live there. but during the mornings things were a little bit different everyday…
on thursday we weren’t really sure what we were going to be doing in the morning. so we headed out to see if anyone had anything that needed to be done (we were expecting to be sorting through clothes that had been donated, as i had worked on it the day before).
we started chatting with the man incharge of the farm grounds, as we were leaving he mentioned that he was having to pull all his guys from their jobs to go put out a fire. when we turned around all we could see was black smoke. we watched for a while as the guys worked on putting out the fire. it looked like they had it all under controll…
but the winds picked up and it was all hands on deck. we had prayed that the fire wouldn’t hit the farm, but now the fire was headed straight for several homesteads on the hill across from us. we all ran to get good shoes on, cut down some branches (that’s the way they put fires out down here, it would be hopeless to try and get water from the river, even the fire department uses paddles to beat out the fire), and headed up the hill. as soon as we got to the first homestead the fire was already closing in on it. even though they had plenty of room cleared around their home, there was a electricity pole that caught on fire for a moment, and a tractor sitting next to the home… there was no way that the people who lived there would have been able to fight the fire off and keep their home from being distroyed by the pole or tractor.
people here maybe used to having fires come through their community every year (it’s the dry season,
so it’s quite common, a lot like the fires in southern california), but it was amazing to see everyone come together to help each other. we may not have had plans for the day, but God had something bigger in store for us…. he wanted to see if we were willing to put our safety on the line for someone else, if we were willing to go the distance, he wanted to see us really love our neighbor and to work together as one body. through the prayers of all the world racers (we quickly spread the word thanks to our cell phones) and everyone coming together with branches and paddles we were able to quickly put out the fire – no homes were damaged and no one was seriously injured. praise the lord!
