FIRE!

I'm sorry for not blogging in a long time. I think it's been 11 months since my last post. I translated for Mom when she taught health at the evangelism school. I've also been translating every morning at the Ag school for health classes.

A month ago the Cootz's container arrived. About 2 hours before it arrived at Kibidula, a fire from the burning of a fire-break that had been burnt that day jumped across a road and lit part of Kibidula on fire. So we got to fight fire AND unload a 40 foot container in one night. We finished unloading the container and got home about midnight! Another time during this dry season, someone (an arsonist) lit a fire on Kibidula in another area. It took about an hour to put it out.

Then about 3 weeks ago we received calls to help the village near us with another arson fire (on Sabbath). Well it was approximately about 1.5 miles long and ¾ mile wide. After about 3 hours it was put out.

Then about 2 weeks ago  (Sabbath AGAIN) we saw LOTS AND LOTS of smoke near the edge of Kibidula and Mr. David Katsma and I went to check on it. It was about a half mile off Kibidula and it was BIG. So Kibidula came to help. I was in my church clothes (we were in a music program when we saw the smoke) and David was too. Oh, well, they got dirty alright! It was a big fire, the biggest I've seen. There were about 75 Kibidulans and maybe 15 villagers and 40 local government forest fire-fighters with a few tools. There were 5 backpack sprayers and a few home-made “fire-flappers”, but most of the fire was fought with branches we ripped off trees. It was quite a challenge but it was put out safely.

So keep praying for us as we are not out of fire season.

Things in the mission field are NOT BORING. I hope to keep you updated better.

- Joshua

Fighting Fire