It was shortly after 3:30am and my fire phone rang, startling Kristi and I awake. What’s a “fire phone” you ask? Well, we have a volunteer fire department here on our mission center, and those on the squad have a dedicated phone installed that is painted red and is reminiscent of the Bat Phone. Usually it only rings when there are grass fires or wrong numbers. It rang again and I answered it in a fog. The voice on the other end wasn’t super clear, but was clear enough to hear the location and that there was a house on fire.
I pulled on what clothes I could reach in an instant and ran out the door as soon as I could with my radio and phone. Jumping into our old postal jeep to rush to the firehouse, I quickly found that I couldn’t see as well as I had hoped as I backed out sideways and lodged the jeep in a ditch next to our house. Unfortunately, there was no time to correct that error, so I abandoned our car and started running toward the firehouse with my adrenaline firing on all cylinders. As I crested the top of the hill about halfway there, our Clinic’s ambulance pulled up between me and the house of the nurse that was on-call that night. The ambulance driver, who lived adjacent to the house fire, didn’t have many details except that it was really bad and that the family made it out of the house. I felt “Thank you Lord!” and “Help us Lord!” at the same time.
In my time here, it seems like our fire crew has never been more than six people at one time, so not big by any means. On this particular night though it just so happened that three of our six in country members were in other parts of PNG, and one of the three of us that was here was a new recruit that hadn’t been to a training yet. The weight of this emergency felt like it was on the fire chief and myself. When the ambulance graciously took me the rest of the way to the firehouse, I rushed in, grabbed my gear, and jumped back in the ambulance to head to the fire. At that moment, I was glad that the chief left the doors wide open as he bolted out with the fire truck just moments before.
My view just after I arrived. You can see the potential of the fire to spread to the surrounding trees (and then on to other houses…), but God was faithful!
It was almost 4am when I finally rolled up to see our friends’ house completely engulfed in flames. It was a sickening fearful feeling that I’ve never experienced before. I remember feeling like I didn’t have time to think, just act, mixed with fearful thoughts of my own family being trapped and all the what ifs that can roll around in your head and torment you in a crisis. Praise the Lord that they made it out! Praise the Lord on high for his mercy in this calamity!
We spent the next three hours working to contain the fire and keep it from spreading to surrounding trees and houses. Unfortunately, it was too fast and too big for our team to save anything from the house. From all reports, it was completely engulfed when the first fire call went out. Even two vehicles parked next to the house were completely lost to the flames. When we first arrived, there were so many frantic moments where you had to rely on muscle memory and training, but then things slowed down as the dawn came. We just had to keep the perimeter cool until the fire calmed down. It was in those moments of waiting that I had so much time to pray for the uncertainty for my friends, and praise the Lord for so many blessings in the midst of this terror.
Praise the Lord that the family made it out, not just alive, but uninjured. Praise the Lord that there had been rain in the days preceding the fire—the surrounding trees and vegetation weren’t catching fire like they could have. Praise the Lord for the people that showed up to help in the early morning hours. I was so thankful for our newest fire team member, who jumped right in with gusto. I was so thankful for the Security guys that were eager to haul pumps and pull hoses. I was so thankful for the people that came out to be with this family in distress and pray for them. I was so thankful for the friends and neighbors who were still there—packing up dirty hoses and other equipment—once everyone else had left. Praise the Lord that our fire crew didn’t sustain any injuries or even have to make a decision that had that potential.
Tired, we rode back to the firehouse, put our gear away, and then I started walking home. I was praying over so many mixed emotions and worries for my friends when I looked down and saw this vibrant moth in the stark contrast of the gravel road. It was a type that I had seen many times before, but this time God flew it strategically into my path as if to say “Don’t worry, I will bring beauty from these ashes.” As I recalled Isaiah 61:3, I trusted that He had a plan.
There are plenty more amazing parts of this story where God worked in miraculous ways, but I’ve tried to just stick to my story here. However, I can tell you that fire and total loss of their belongings couldn’t stop this family from staying here and translating God’s Word for the people that don’t have Scripture in their language. The Lord wins the final victory!
That reminds me of a conversation that I recently had with my friend, Steven, regarding the loss they endured in Amomonta. He said “They burned our houses down and they destroyed our gardens, but they couldn’t steal the Holy Spirit from our hearts.” Friends, God is moving in this place.
I’ll wrap up this post with one of my favorite passages since I was a teenager, Lamentations 3:21-26. However, I don’t think I’ve ever read it in The New Living Translation before (which I use fairly often these days) which has a unique take on vs. 19-20...
19 The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words.
20 I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss.
21 Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this:
22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”
25 The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him.
26 So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.