Last Saturday here in Tanzania started well. My friend Lazaro and I got up early to burn some brush that had been cleared near the house. It had rained a little during the night so we knew it might be too wet. We were correct. The piles of brush and grass were difficult to light and only a few of them burned to quickly fizzle out.

We decided to wait a few days to let everything dry out more. I proceeded to cut some weeds around the house, came in, cleaned up, and then had breakfast. Everyone else in the house went to town to purchase supplies for the week. Michele and I were the only ones here. I spent the next few hours reading my Swahili Bible and preparing for our worship on Sunday.

Then at about 11:30 a.m. I heard a crackling sound like that of a fire. Looking out the window I saw the wind had picked up and reignited the fire we had tried to start 5 hours earlier, but this time the grass was dry. Immediately Michele and I grabbed hoes and buckets of water and ran to put it out, but we soon realized we were in over our heads.

The wind was quickly pushing it toward our house and our neighbor’s house. Michele went for help while I stayed and fought it. She had to run uphill in the tropical heat (further and faster than I have ever seen her run). By the time she got to the clinic she was huffing and puffing and desperately looking for help! Six people answered her call and came. It took about 30 minutes to get the fire under control with hoes, water, and tree limbs to beat it down.

We invited all of them into our home for some water and a small thank you gift for coming to our rescue. We were very thankful as were they.

I knew most of them from the village, except one. He seemed to be worried about leaving something outside on his bike (I think he was concerned about our dogs). We found out later he is a hunter. He had just killed some wild game somewhere around here and had the meat in a bag. He told us the Swahili name of the animal, but we did not know it. He said it looked something like a goat, but it was probably more like a gazelle.

The meat looked fresh so we bought some and cooked it for lunch. It was the best meat we have eaten while here in this part of Tanzania. So there we were. Everyone had left and Michele and I were eating game meat, potatoes and pineapple for lunch, amazing! God is good. He provides. The fire was extinguished. Relationships grew. Everything was calm and peaceful.

One other interesting thing about this story is that we had planned to go up the clinic mid-morning but were delayed because I was still studying. If we had been gone and not seen the fire start who knows what would have happened?

Thank you, Lord!