Our Great Adventure: The Fire

OK, firstly I want to apologise to all of you for not posting anything the past few weeks. I am still alive though and will try to make it up to you. There is a very good excuse(and excuses) for that though and I'll get to it in a minute.
The word "fire" in the title probably got your attention huh? Well, it wasn't just any fire, like a match fire or little bonfire. What I'm going to tell you is about one of those really BIG fires that are actually quite scary and could consume one's house in a matter of minutes. Anyway, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, so I'll try to start from the beginning.

The Lord had given us this house: really beautiful, in a nature reserve, pool, garden, cottage, thatch roof. It was all ours by faith. The Lord had given us many promises in prophecy and we had lots of prayer meetings from the time we saw the house till now. Problems kept on cropping up, it felt like we'd take two steps forward and the enemy would push us one step back.
Some of the problems:
-There was no water or electricity at the house making building and cleaning difficult
-We found there was a complication with the water as it comes from a borehole
-The owner was almost impossible to get in contact with
-He wasn't coming through with his promises (like clearing out rubble and trash)
-The neighbors told us that the owner was a dishonest man, and basically described him as a "shark"
On the building side of things it was going pretty well for the most part. We got all the building materials donated to us and we only had to buy a few things like tile adhesive. I won't say that it was easy, we had most of the guys gone 5-7 days of the week. We also had to keep people up at the house at night for security's sake as we had the generator and our power tools up there.
Because of the seeming difficulties we had to ask the moving company if we could push back the moving date from the 22 of September to the 22 of October. It seemed like a setback at the time.
One Wednesday, two/three weeks ago now, it was especially chaotic. We were trying to organize trips to the house, who needed to go and what needed to be done. It was decided that Jim and June would go and the kids would go and get to explore the nature reserve. Jim was going to stay the night at the new house to keep guard then June thought she would stay at the house with him. The kids were supposed to come back home for dinner but they decided to stay and sleepover at the new house.
Later in the evening 5 of us young people took the second car out clubbing for a friends birthday. It was just a normal day and now night, or so we thought. We had fun out at the club, dancing and spending time with friends. Since we had a normal work-day the next day we decided to leave at 1:00. I was feeling pretty tired from the day and we had been dancing for 3 or 4 hours now. Noah reassured us that he was fine driving this late and encouraged us to sleep on the ride home.
I settled down in my seat and tried to get comfy for the ride. Five minutes later Noah's cell rings. It sounded like a call from home and I was wondering what could be going on this late at home for them to call us. We were all sitting up when Noah said, "What?!" on the phone, then I knew for sure something was wrong. As soon as the call ended we bombarded him with questions.
"The cottage is on fire! They're asking us to the house to help as soon as possible as there are no other cars at home!"
Hearing that was just so weird and for a while it couldn't register properly in my brain. Why would there be a fire? It just didn't make sense. After a few seconds we in the car all joined in prayer. We hadn't been told how serious the fire was but we prayed as best as we could for a few minutes. The minutes dragged as we sat in the car in silence. Noah turned on the emergency lights and we raced down the highway as fast as we could go. Joy kept on praying in a whisper and pretty soon I joined her. I wasn't really sure what to pray for but I prayed for us to make it there safely, for the house, the children.
On the last piece of road down to the nature reserve, I had the feeling that I had never felt so desperate in all my life. Was the whole house burning? Was anyone hurt? After praying so much I felt like I couldn't pray anymore. I just started to praise the Lord. I know it sounds strange but I started to praise the Lord for the fire and all that had happened with the house.
The last hundred metres or so from the nature reserve we could see the whole thing. The house is up on a hill and can be seen clearly from the road. This time was different, it was night so everything was dark, everything except the fire! We could see fire on the hill and it looked like a lot. There was fire where our house was, fire behind, and a line of fire coming around the right side to the front. It was terrifying!
It looked like a serious bushfire. What are we going to do? We don't even have any hoses or water! Our Honda went through the reserve and up that hill bouncing up and down on every bump and hole in the road. When we got closer we realised with relief that the house was not yet on fire. Still the roof was thatch and a little wind was blowing, realistically and logically speaking there was no hope.
When we neared the house we jumped out of the car. Noah and Anita went back down to direct the firetruck that was supposed to arrive soon, the rest of us ran to help. June came running to us shouting, but I couldn't understand. We were still dressed in our party clothes as we had come straight from the club. I was a little wobbly on the bumpy/rocky road in my high-heels but you never really mind those kind of things in emergencies. June finally asked if one of us could stay with the children, she had told them to go further down the road a safer distance from the fire. She had been running back and forth from the children and the fire that whole time.
I thought that staying with the kids was just as needed as putting out the fire, and well, as much as we'd like too we can't all be heroes. So I offered to go be with the the kids and searched the darkness for them. I ran back down calling their names and finally saw two figures in the dark. We hugged and huddled together for comfort and warmth. They were so brave, I was so proud of them. The told me their side of the story and together we prayed against the fire and for those fighting it. From where we were standing we couldn't see so well what was going on. The cottage roof was completely burned and now the inside with all the junk and scrap wood was burning. Wind blew sparks from the cottage and caught the carport on fire. We couldn't see though because of the distance and tree in front. To us it looked like one side of the house had caught on fire. There was nothing we could do but pray. The kids and I were crying and praying asking the Lord to spare the house and all our people there fighting the fire. We prayed desperately for the wind to blow in the opposite direction away from the house. I also started praying specifically against anyone doing anything crazy that might get them hurt.
Meanwhile a bunch of neighbors had come up to our house to help or to watch. One neighbor brought a small truck with a generator attached to a water tank and a hose. That was a real help as there was no running water on the property.
Jim, June, Steve and Joy were trying to put out the fire on the carport roof and hopefully save the house from catching on fire. The house is 5 or so metres from the carport so they were really afraid of it spreading. Upon arriving at the scene Steve jumped into the water tank (that thankfully had some water left in it)and started hauling out buckets of water to Joy. Joy would pass the bucket to Jim who would then run and dump it on the fire. The water tank was quite big and Joy could only see Steve's hand as he passed the bucket to her. The poor guys felt pretty helpless! And Jim was still barefoot and in his pyjamas running back and forth on the gravel.
At one point when the carport was barely burning Joy asked June if they should go under and try to some some of the stuff there. "No way!" June was adamant that no one should try going under there to save anything. Just minutes later the roof collapsed and the whole thing burst into huge flames. Everyone had to take a few steps back and cover their eyes as the heat was so strong. Seeing that happen from were the kids and I were we all thought for sure the house has caught on fire.
There was an air con in the carport and Jim was afraid that it might explode. He finally threw a few buckets of sand on it and it popped and fizzled and stoped burning. The people operating the hose sprayed the burning thatch a bit, but then watered the wall between the house and the carport. The wall was so hot that the water sprayed on it turned to steam. It's a miracle the roof of the house didn't light.
The firemen and policeman arrived around that time. They first started spraying down the cottage a bit. There wasn't much to be done about that they had to let it burn down or else it could start up again. It was the same for the carport. All they could do was to make sure things stayed under control and that the house didn't catch fire.
Back home the mommies had been praying from the time they first received the call about the fire till the time we all got back home. Gabe then borrowed the car from next door( thank you sweet neighbors! xoxox) and drove up to the house along with Liz and Andy. The ASH was also alerted about the fire and the sweet people sent a carload of men to come help. Mind you this was all happening between 1 and 2 in the morning.
Gabe and them arrived even before the firemen, and GB Gabe he really went on the attack against the fire. After helping a bit at the house he left by himself and put out the fire that had been creeping around the side of our property. When I found this out I told him he should have asked someone to go with him for safety. Thankfully he was perfectly fine and did not get hurt.
After turning the kids over to Liz I went with Joy to see the damage caused by the fire. There was lots of smoke coming from the burning remains of the carport and I could barely see my way through the gate. Everything was under control though. We were able to be a witness to the policeman and even the fireman. The police himself commented to Jim that it was a miracle that the house didn't catch on fire. He said if that house started burning there was nothing that could be done to save it. "You could even hose the whole roof down till the inside of the house would flood but it wouldn't stop the burning thatch," he told us."
They kept raking the thatch and letting it burn, occasionally spraying it to keep it down. Since the firetruck was the only thing with water now they had to conserve it for the house roof instead of using it on the remains of the cottage and carport.
It was difficult to look at the fire damage, especially to see the cottage burnt out with only the shell remaining. We had put so much work and effort into the cottage and now it was only burning ruble. I felt especially sad for Steve and Jim who had worked on the cottage almost everyday for 3 weeks!
By about 3am we finally went home. The firemen would stay longer and we left Noah and Jim to guard the house for the rest of the night. The ride back home was very quiet. We were thankful the house had been spared and that no one had gotten hurt. But it was difficult to accept the loss of the cottage.
I was so exhausted when we got home. I had to go change into warmer clothes as that whole time I had been standing outside getting chilled in my party clothes.Everyone gathered together in the living room to pray. We poured out our hearts to the Lord praying for continued protection and even thanking Him. After praying we discussed the miracles of the whole event. It was so touching to hear the different sides of the story and to see people praise the Lord in spite of it all! God bless Janet and Nora who had stayed home the whole time and prayed for all of us from start to finish. We were able to share with them what happened. A few people had visions of the Lord's protection and it was so nice to end this terrifying experience on a positive note.
I munched on dry toast as I listened to different people speak. It was past 4am now and I felt very weak. We finally ended the prayer and praise and everyone stumbled off to bed. I managed to shower and wash off the smoke and burning smell before crawling into bed with Steve at 4:30. He was pretty upset by the fire. I didn't really know what to say so we just prayed for the night and I drifted off into a troubled sleep.

I would like to thank all of you who faithfully pray for me and for our home. I know your prayers were a help to us in our time of need.