Monday, November 25, 2013

In The Burning...

It was a fairly normal Friday morning last week.  Charlie had showed up and he and I were working together in the office on emails and various other things when Yassipy, one of the boys, came running in and out of breath exclaimed there was an emergency and we needed to come right away.  Charlie and I looked at each other with that unsure look of whether this was a prank or not but decided to listen and followed in Yassipy’s haste.  As soon as we entered the house we smelled smoke and Yassipy said “fire”.  As we ran into the older boys rooms we were confronted with a bright orange glow coming out of one of the boys rooms and, as we turned the corner, that glow turned into a raging inferno.

Immediately I yelled for everyone to get out of the house and to get water.   Gustave, awakened on his day off by my bellowing, came running out of his room sleepy eyed and panicked.  I told him we had a fire in Baby’s, one of the boys, room and had to get everyone out and then get water in there ASAP.  We were outside in seconds and were immediately filling buckets of water to take inside and douse the flames.  It was absolute pandemonium.  We were running everywhere and Gustave and I were shouting orders while Charlie was helping the boys with water and get the rest of our staff to help.  When we moved back inside we found standing in the door tossing in buckets of water was about as effective as chewing bubble gum to solve a math problem and were quickly outmatched by the growing blaze as it engulfed the foam mattresses in the room and choked us with noxious fumes.  We moved outside and tried getting a hose to spray in through the window but water pressure doesn’t really seem to exist in Rwanda, or at least in the quantities that would have been enough to put out such a blaze, and for a moment, I was defeated.  Throughout the ordeal thus far I had been praying the Lord would keep me thinking straight, as he always seems to do in such situations, but I was nearly overcome with despair as I watched the blaze grow and begin melting the roof.  I had no weapons to fight and we couldn’t stay inside to fight it.  The smoke made my lungs ache with all that burned polystyrene.  For a brief moment, I gave in to the fact the whole house was going to burn.  It was then, in that darkest moment, that the Father God came through.  

Just as I decided to not give up, many of our neighbors came and began yelling for dirt to be thrown in to smother the blaze.  The few of our older boys who were here that day immediately began throwing dirt and breaking in the windows so we could fight from outside.  During this time our younger boys, some of our staff, and many of our neighbors were clearing out every room of valuables and getting other fuel out of the house should the fire fail to be contained in that one room.  I have never, ever been more thankful for concrete walls in a house.  If the house would have been wood framed, like most houses in the states, I am as sure as I can be we would have lost everything.  I began helping move things out of the immediate vicinity of the room and then started fighting the fire from inside once more as we had people bringing in buckets of dirt so we could smother it in spite of the smoke.  Slowly but surely, the plan worked.  If we would have had adequate water pressure the fire would have been out much earlier, but our Rwandan friends knew how to fight fires without such things.  It was humbling for me, but it was a good lesson.  I am extremely thankful four our neighbors who ordered people to bring in dirt and to stop with the water. 

As the flames died down we were able to enter the room and continue to pile dirt on the remaining flames burning on the beds and the armoire.  By this time, the house was empty of furniture, clothes, and anything else that could burn, and we were closing it out.  The smoke, however, was still thick, and the burning rafters were in danger of falling on us, but the two other neighbor men and I in the room had no other choice but to move into the room and put it out in close proximity.  By the grace of God they stayed up and we were able to smother every last bit of flames in the room with dirt.  

When we were sure there was no more risk of fire spreading from the room I went out to check on other areas of the house and found Charlie up on the roof with a neighbor who was ripping open the eves in a corner of the roof and expelling a bird nest in there that had begun to smolder.  With the bird’s nest removed, and the crisis now over, I went back inside the room and took a hose to begin drowning whatever the dirt had smothered as well as douse the rafters and make sure no embers remained.  When we had made sure no trace of flame or fire was left I pulled as many of our boys and staff together as I could outside and we prayed.  We thanked God for saving our home, I live here too, after all.  We thanked God that more was not lost and that it was all replaceable.  We thanked the Holy Spirit for guiding us and giving us clear minds to deal with the crisis.  We thanked Jesus for our neighbors, without whom we would surely have been lost.  And, most of all, we thanked God that no one was hurt.  I got a small burn on my arm from the super hot metal doorframe, but that’s all as far as I know.

The next three hours consisted of taking the burned bunk frames and bed boards out, ripping out the armoire, removing whatever tatters of burned clothes and books were left in it, shoveling out all the dirt, ash, and broken glass, and then washing, scrubbing, and scraping out whatever was left.  It was quite the task.  There were only two things that made it out of that room unscathed; one was an integrated mathematics book, and the other was, naturally, Baby’s Kinyarwanda Bible.  When we found it a few of us began singing “there is power in the name of Jesus!”  It was a seriously cool moment and one that will stick with us all for a long time.  

As we completed our survey of the damage after cleanup the results were not anywhere near as bad as we would have thought.  Other than Baby’s room in which everything but the metal bed frames, and the bible and math book, were lost only the ceilings in the bathroom, the outside hallway, and a smidge of the common room for the older boys’ side was burned.  Three metal rafters going up to the tin roof bowed under the heat, and part of the roof bowed in as well but the loss was fairly minimal compared to what it could have been. The Lord really looked after us through all of it to the point that even the melted and bowed roof still kept the ensuing rain out.  It rained all weekend and not a drop got inside.  Praise the Lord!

What we have presumed to be the start of the blaze was either a faulty voltage regulator or the wall socket the regulator was plugged into in Baby’s room.  The regulator sat on a chair and, according to Yassipy, “popped” and caught the chair on fire.  Once the foam on the chair was burning the large foam mattress right next to it went up quickly and then the other mattresses and the armoire.  It all happened in less than a minute.  If Yassipy had not been here visiting while the other older boys were all out of the house this would have been a very different story.

All of this just continues to show God’s provision and protection here at HFLM.  There is no doubt in my mind the enemy wanted the whole house to burn down that day but Jesus stepped in and said “NO”.  What a miracle we only lost what we did and that no one was hurt.  Thank you for your faithfulness Lord Jesus.  Now we look to you, and only you, for our provision, healing, and growth in the future.  Amen and Amen!

All that was left in Baby's room after the clean out.
 View of the outside
Me and Charlie


1 comment:

  1. Wow! What an adventure! Glad you were there to help put it out and no one was badly hurt. Who would've thought to put out a house fire with dirt?! So good to FaceTime with you today. I am so proud of the work you are doing there and know that God has you right where He needs you. Thank you for serving where you have been called and being faithful to His leading.

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