Fire!

We had a very chaotic/emotional day...Our day started not so great...We are trying to change the way we live our life, to please the Lord. We stayed up til after 3am this morning talking about purging our house of anything not beneficial to our walk with the Lord. So as is usual, we got a lot of adversity today. We were trying to get things done, and it wasn't going well. One of my sons cleaned the fireplace and took the ashes outside...The normal process is to leave them for at least the day or two and then dump them in a box for the chickens to use to keep away the bugs. For some reason, today he decided to dump them right away. He came back in and then took some garbage out to the trailer which is over by the propane tank. He came running back in yelling "there's a fire by the propane tank!!!" We obviously panicked, sent the kids outside, grabbed shoes and ran...I couldn't think much past "Oh God, help us!" I sent the kids down the road and James ran to the back side of the fire. I yelled for someone to bring me a shovel and James was hooking up the hose. The fire in the front of the house came within 5 feet of my van, and just a few feet of the side porch (which is of course all wood). I had grabbed a jacket and was hitting it out with that. One of the boys brought me a "shovel"...It was a trench digger. Didn't help much :) I had called 9-1-1, but apparently they couldn't find our house on their system. (That is a call I'm going to make later when I'm not so emotional!) I kept hitting fires as they came too near the house. Put out a fire on the lawnmower bag. Put out a fire around the electric pole, then realized the fire was in my backyard and only a few yards from my house. I ran back there and was hitting it out at the first spot I got to. Once I got that out, I went further in and James yelled for me to hook the hose up. I couldn't find the hose. James Michael brought a 2x4 and started hitting fires out with it, but then threw it to try to hook up another hose. The hose caught on something and caught fire though so it was rendered useless. As this was happening the fire came through the fence and flared up bad in my face. The "shovel" I had was of no use so I ran in the house and filled up a big pot. I ran back out and poured it on the fire. It didn't do much, but it was enough to slow it momentarily. At that point Jason came back and said the girls were screaming so I went to make sure they were ok and to try to stop the fire from jumping our driveway. (the other side of the driveway is very tall, very dry grass) I sent the girls further down the road away from the smoke and then the first 2 firetrucks got there. They started to work on the fire and then realized James was in the back so they went back there to work on that fire. Thankfully they did right then, because the fire flared again and was also very close to our rabbit hutch and chicken coop. James pointed at it and they got it away from there and then got it away from our house. I continued to try to stop it from jumping our drive, James continued to help in the back. The wind was really bad though and it finally jumped and flared so bad that I yelled at the boys to run and we hightailed it out of there. The fire immediately overwhelmed the grass on the opposite side of the driveway and took off. From there it jumped the road and was burning the neighbors field. At that point James came around and was able to drive the van through the fire (me and all the kids were on the wrong side of the fire, where we were, we couldn't have gotten out because the road was engulfed in flames) to get all of us. We got in the van and went back to the front of the house where James got out and went back to the back as the fire was coming up towards the house again and the 2 man fire team that was there was trying to stop a major grass fire from erupting. I drove the kids down the road and watched, waited and prayed. Finally three more fire crews and the big tank truck showed up and were able to get the fire under control. I went back to the house and picked up James and got some things we needed from the house. (my makeup, I couldn't go to town looking like I did ya know! LOL) Then we went to the doctors. Me and the kids had x-rays done and 2 kids had breathing treatments. But were otherwise (thank the Lord!) Fine! James went to the ER and the doctor he got was a "bad" one. His oxygen levels were down to 92, but the doctor basically said that since even though his lungs hurt and his O2 levels were low, that since he wasn't standing in the flames (yes I mean he said that since he wasn't literally standing in the flames) and his shoes weren't melted (they were melted) that he was fine. Just to take some Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Yes, we have some of the worst doctors on planet earth here! He came into the room with us and said what happened so the doctor we were seeing gave James Michael a refill on his inhaler and said for "anyone" who needed it to use it.

So, needless to say, We are SOOO Thankful that the Lord had His hand on us! We know He is the One who protected us and kept us safe from harm. As well as preventing our house from burning down! We realize that our most important possessions (our Children) were kept safe, but we don't have insurance on our house right now because of finances, so it was nice to not have that burn down. Plus we kinda like having a house to live in and having all our clothes and possessions! :)

God is Good!