Answered Prayers...

The Lord has answered a big prayer of ours. He definitely answered in a way that I never could have possibly imagined…but “we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose." - Rom_8:28

I wish it could be a fun and exciting story but sadly it isn’t. The evening of January 20^th we were sitting with some new friends in our living room drinking coffee and enjoying some wonderful fellowship when we heard a strange noise almost like car horns blaring. I still have no idea what that noise was but soon after that weird noise started our doorbell rang and the woman at the gate yelled the house was on fire. Immediately I panicked thinking she meant our house but soon realized it was our neighbor’s house that was on fire. We quickly grabbed Tristan out of bed and loaded our most important things into the car and got out of our house in case the fire spread. Praise the Lord our roof did not catch on fire even with the wind blowing in our direction! Sadly our neighbor’s house completely burnt down and she has lost most everything. The people in the neighborhood ran inside to try to save as much stuff as they could before the ceiling collapsed but still most everything is gone. The Fire department did eventually arrive but the fire had almost died out by the time they got there. Probably around 11pm we felt safe enough to go back into our house. About that same time some women in the neighborhood organized to have the things salvaged taken to a number of the neighbors houses to keep it safe and out of the rain. We offered to let them store some of her stuff in our guest bedroom. We then learned she didn’t have any friends or family nearby to stay with so she actually stayed in our guest bedroom for about a week with her youngest son who is 11 years old. She is Batswana but does speak English very well. Her son does not speak much English but enough that we can understand each other. It is a learning experience culturally and has had its awkward moments for sure! Each day they were here got easier and more exciting as we started to build a friendship with them. Friday evening (Jan 21^st) the community had a meeting to decide how to help Mma Thabo. Many people donated things such as a school uniform for her son Phenyo or small gifts of money. It was so neat to see the community come together to help her! We had been praying for a while that the Lord would give us an opportunity to reach out to our neighbors. With big cement walls (or “stopnonsense” as they call them) all around our house as well as most of our neighbors houses, it is very hard to get to know any of them. You don’t really see many people unless you happen to be going in or out at the same time. So we kept praying God would open doors and help us to somehow get involved with the community and our neighbors. Well this has thrown that door wide open! I wish it could have happened because of a happy incident but again we know that God has a plan and a purpose for everything! Through it all we have gotten to know many of our neighbors and they welcomed us into their community. It has been so exciting to have this breakthrough! Please be praying for us that we can be a light in our neighborhood as well as an encouragement to our neighbors who have just lost everything they own.