*I don’t have any pictures of the fire, so some more Literacy School pics will have to do.
It was last Friday night and we had just put the kids to bed for the night when we heard people yelling and hollering in the distance. It is not that uncommon for people to be hollering across hilltops and valleys at all times of day as it is their means of communication from village to village or to people in their gardens. However, this time I decided to step outside and see if I could hear what they were hollering about. A baby being born, or someone getting hurt is a common reason for this type of commotion after dark. Well, I opened my front door and immediately my eyes found the source of the ruckus. A big blaze could be clearly seen straight across the small valley our porch overlooks. Night had descended but I could still tell the blaze was located right where I knew a village to be. I gave my co-worker, Nate Claasen, a call and told him to look out his window. Five minutes later we were on the trail headed for that village. We arrived in the village 20 minutes later to find a glowing pile of embers in place of one of the houses. The nearest two houses had caught fire a bit two, one of them losing half its roof.
Nobody was hurt in the fire as the house was vacant when the fire started. A cooking fire left to die on its own started the fire on this windy day. The owner of the house lost everything inside. The man and his family will stay with others until a new house is built but all his possessions are not so easily replaced. We, as a team, are discussing now what would be appropriate to give as we also seek to discover how the Pal community helps their own in times like this.
Anyways, we can be thanking the Lord that no one was hurt and be praying that our team’s response to this would be a step in leading them to Christ.