December Post #7

(written December 17, 2012) With dry season comes the burning of the brush and grass that has spread and grown like crazy during rainy season. In the past week, we’ve had two near misses with fires set near our house.   The first incident occurred Friday afternoon, when I was up at one of the family's teaching violin lessons. From the accounts from C and Ellen, though, it sounds like they had a few tense moments. Frankie, our 10-year old neighbor, decided to burn some of the weeds at the bottom of the hill behind our house. He just needed a small fire, but somehow that fire got out of hand and shot right up the hill, burning everything in its path. At the top of the hill stands a line of towering pine trees. The fire actually started to burn several of those trees. C happened to look out her window and noticed all of the trees burning. If those burning trees toppled over, our house could easily have caught on fire. So she and Ellen went to talk to Frankie. He was trying his best to set out the fires, one cup full of water at a time. Finally, the ladies decided to call Frankie’s father, Youssef. Youssef, who is also our landlord, rushed home and got the situation under control.   On Saturday, we had a ladies’ meeting at our house. At the end of the meeting, we were sitting around talking, and we all heard a large fire crackling nearby. When the noise grew too loud to ignore, we all headed outside to see the fire. This one was in front of our house in a field right down the hill from us. Apparently, some young kids had set the field on fire. When they realized the fire was out of control, however, they ran away. God was so gracious in his protection of us, though. Just a few minutes before we went to check on the fire, our electricity went out. Apparently, electrical current can speed a fire along. We stood watching the blaze, waiting to see what would happen to the fire. And just as quickly as the fire had flamed up, it went out. Minutes after the fire burned out, our electricity came back on. It’s so neat to be able to see God’s protection in such specific ways.