Fires and more

October 26, 2007 · Filed under Children, Church and Worship, Friends and Family

Hello out there in blog land! I hope you’re all still with me. Thank you for being patient. I’ve been going through some rough times and haven’t felt like doing much of anything, let alone blog. I’ll try to just force myself to do it anyways. Who knows, maybe it will be theraputic.

Sunday I had a bit of an adventure. After church, I was invited to the T’s house for lunch. M had taken MJ and E home with him. He’s not been letting them come for the past 2 weekends. (Please pray that he’ll change his mind. The children really want to come.) So I called M up and okayed it with him and off C and I went with the T’s. The dad was out of town on a business trip, and Mrs. T’s mother who lives on their property in a trailer was off visiting another relative. So it was just Mrs. T, and her two boys S and I, about 18 and 17, I think. And her grown daughter, J, who came back home to live with them for awhile.

Anyways, J was at home already. We went to the store to pick up a couple things and then headed “up the hill”. They live about 45 minutes away from the town where the church is, out in a very rural area.

When we got there, we made tacos with steak and bell pepper and onions, guacamole, salsa and salad. It was all very tasty. Mrs. T and I were able to grab a quickish dessert in her lovely and serene formal livingroom before we had to head back down the hill for evening service.

As we were nearing a junction in the road, we could see a fire off to the left in a field. We at first debated whether or not it was still burning or if it had been put out. As we got closer, we could see that it was indeed still burning. Actually, it was burning very close. Further down, whoa! It’s right there, on both sides of the road! The Santa Ana winds had just started that day or the day before, and it was extremely windy. The fire must have spread rapidly and jumped the road very quickly, since there were no warning signs back up the road more that we should stop. We quickly turned around and headed back. While we were driving towards it, I was kind of just thinking, “well, this is kind of interesting”. Then when we had to stop and turn around, I though, “Wow, you don’t see something like this everyday”. But as we were halfway turned around, strong smoke smell suddenly wafted through the car and I had a momentary flood of being scared and realizing that the fire was really close and that we could be in danger. It probably lasted all of 30 seconds, and then we were heading away from it. Whew! It was really close, though.

As soon as we turned around, I called M at home because I didn’t think I’d get reception at the T’s house. He was very upset about what had happened, which brought my mood down considerably. Finally, I just settled in and wondered, “Why does God want me here?” He is a God of providence. He orchestrates everything. He is in command. For some reason, He had arranged things to place me here, stranded at the T’s house. Why? I decided to stop fighting it and just accept it as something that was in God’s control and part of His will. I don’t know that I will ever know the reason he put me there, but I trust that it was a good one.

Mrs. T and I sat in her sitting room again and had some coffee (which we hadn’t had time for before) and had a very nice visit.

The winds were whipping around outside, and we were hearing reports of several fires breaking out throughout Southern California. Her son, S just graduated the fireman’s academy, so he was really in heaven. He kept checking websites and his scanner, and calling “the guys” on the squad. After awhile it became apparent that I would not be going anywhere anytime soon. There was a back way in/out, but it was a winding, tretcherous road with no guard rails and a cliff drop-off. Coupled with the extremely high winds and the dark, it wasn’t something her or I relished braving.

I called M again and appraised him of the situation. He was still ticked. He couldn’t get the next day off from work, so I called a friend to come and stay with the children in the morning. Mrs. W said she could come, and she lived nearby.

We watched the news for awhile, but were kind of frustrated because it was only covering the fires in Orange County. We receieved word that some friends from church had had to evacuate their homes.

Mr T arrived around 10:30. He had come in the back way. He had also graciously brought diapers for C, I had only packed a few in the diaper bag for church. The power went out for about 20 minutes at one point. Since they have a well with an electric pump, that also meant that the water went out. I was a little nervous about that prospect. After the power came back on, we filled up a large container with drinking water, and made sure we knew where all the flashlights were.

Finally, everyone headed to bed. I was offered S’s room, but chose to sleep on the sleeper sofa. It was actually a very comfortable couch, but the sleeper part wasn’t anything to write home about. The mattress wasn’t the reason I didn’t sleep well, however. I kept waking up all night, praying for the evacuated families, and for our safety there and the safety of my babies at home. The wind was howling all night long and never let up. I was afraid a tree would blow over onto the house or something.

By morning, the wind had still not abated. The T’s slept in somewhat. I was awake around 6:20 and then snoozed a bit longer until almost 7. We had scrambled eggs with the leftover meat and peppers. That was very good. I showered and S called his fire station. He learned that he had to report in, and that the road was now open, so we all scrambled to get ready and got out the door. I felt privelidged to witness such a historic event in the life of the family. Their son going off to the fire station for the first time. Mrs. T was alternately excited for him, and Mama Bear scared. I felt so sympathetic for her, I can’t imagine my son going off to do some dangerous job. It would be very tough. Kudos to her for being so strong about it.

We dropped S off at the staton and headed into town. The wind was blowing dust across intermittent stretches of the road so bad that the visibilty was very poor. But it was only a few seconds before we drove out of it. We heard that the road we came out on may be closed again, so the T’s wanted to hurry up and do some shopping and get back up the hill. I didn’t want them to have to take me all the way home, so I suggested they drop me off at Mrs. P’s house, which was on the way, and then Mrs. P could take me home. So they did.

The other Mrs. P was now watching my children at home, as Mrs. W had an appointment that she couldn’t miss. I had arranged that before we left. They all seemed to be doing well.

Mrs. P was running kind of behind that morning so it took awhile for us to get out of there. I arrived home about 2:30 or 3pm. I was so relieved to get home finally. E was napping, so I didn’t get to see her for a few more hours. I sure missed my “babies”! We realized a couple nights later that we have never been apart for a night before. Boo Hoo!

Okay, it’s getting late here and nobody is probably even interested in reading all those details! I need to head to bed… er, well, I’m in bed with the laptop, but I need to get up to turn the bathroom light off.

I might write more tomorrow…
Thanks for reading, and thank you to all of you who have been praying for me since my last post.
May God bless you richly!
JJ