Fire

"Nathan, your house is on fire."

This is NOT how we expected to spend our Saturday night. Around 10:30 PM on Saturday, September 3, Nathan received a call from one of our church Deacons (our former Sunday School teacher, Bill). He jumped up and yelled "What?! ... What?!" I thought sure someone in our family had died. To my relief, that was not the case, but it was totally shocking to hear that our new house was on fire. Nathan left right away, and I called our friends Andy and Cassandra to stay with the kids so I could go to the house. Cassandra came to babysit and Andy drove me over there.

I had no idea what to expect, but the fire was already out when we got there. We just saw a small hole in the roof of the house and the garage door was missing and there was stuff from the garage everywhere.

Bill was already there. Andy was amazing calling our insurance company for us while we filled our parents in, delt with emotions, and waited for the fire chief to take us into the house. Seeing the damage was pretty shocking and overwhelming. The chief was very helpful and encouraging, and all the firefighters assured us that our insurance would take care of everything.

Nathan had spent the day Saturday staining all the wood floors in the house (basically the whole house). He finished around 4, put all the rags in the garage, and came home. We stopped by at 6 and I walked through the garage and didn't notice anything. Sometime between then and 10 the rags spontaneously combusted and caught the door between the garage and house on fire and it spread from there. One of the neighbors saw the smoke and flickering light and called 911 at 10:15. He and another neighbor even pounded on the doors to make sure nobody was home.

The firefighters got there really quickly and got the fire put out. The damage from the fire is mostly in the garage and the hallway in the house. There is also a lot of damage from the firefighting itself throughout the house.

We had amazing support from our church, family, and friends that night and throughout the last couple weeks. I'm SO thankful we had so many people there for us those first few days. It was incredibly comforting.

Our insurance company has been so good to us so far and we love our adjusters. We are amazed at the awesome benefit of homeowner's insurance. I cannot fathom going through this without it.

Although it was a traumatic experience and it is so disheartening to think about the huge amount of time and effort we put into this house, we have really come to have a peace about what happened. We are realizing more and more what a blessing this will be. Not only will we be given many upgrades to our house and belongings (new roof, breaker box, appliances, etc.), but we are no longer responsible for the labor. Nathan is home in the evenings now!!! I never would have guessed in a million years that a fire could turn out to be a blessing.

Please pray that things progress quickly and that the work be done well. I would love to move before Christmas. Thank you for your love and support during this difficult experience!!