Overview 25th August - 24 September and First 3 Fires

Written on 9/24/2014
Hi. So sorry about not posting in a long, long time. I will try to tell what has been going on.
We have had 3 wildfires and 4 controlled burns. All the fires happened in 4 days! Wow. That was from the 25th to the 28th of August. Then on the 5th of this month we went to Kirando, Dodoma, for a 2 week effort. The locals were mainly Mus1îm and Masai. On the way a truck came barreling around a corner and the back of the truck came swinging toward the car we were in, and fortunately our driver swung our car into the ditch and back on the road AND---- we missed it.
 So- this blog is about the first 3 fires. The first fire was on Monday the 25th of August.

Our worker saw smoke right after lunch and it looked very close so we checked it out. It was a controlled burn close to our house. The smoke was blowing straight at our house so we(Mom and me) went to the fire on the side where there was verylittle smoke. Dad and a few other people were working on one of the water pumps. We started helping a little as the firecontinued. Little did we know we would be seriously needed later. Later we saw the fire team leader running with 1 or 2
men behind him. As he came up he said there was a wildfire at the end of the runway. The driver of our water truck for fires, who is on the fire team ran with them and took our fire truck. My mom started calling people all around campus to help with the wildfire. People began arriving soon. My mom, me, and a few other people stayed to help at the controlled burn. As soon as the edges were burned a few stayed while a few went to the wildfire. We were able to put out all the fire.
One hour after my parents went to bed it was 10 pm and we got a phone call saying the controlled burn had escaped and was spreading. We caught it in time, or it would have not been able to be stopped. At about 1 am everybody went to bed except the director(Jason Fournier,)2 Masai(Kibidula guards,) and the fire team leader(Hosea Mapile.) So that was the first day!

Without our Lay Missionaries, Kibidula staff(especially Kibwana, Jason, Hosea, David Katsma, and others),and fire team we would not have put them out and been safe. A big “Thank you” to all who helped and prayed.

Joshua Schoch