September 26 – “The Floody Fire”

I had a lunch meeting yesterday with one of the local Galveston pastors.  His church is in the East End of the Island and is doing really well connecting with the medical students.  I just wanted to get to know him a little bit and ask if they had any “extra” musicians there who might want to do some mission work leading worship at Seaside.  Aaron didn’t know of anyone, but it was good to meet him.  Guess I’ll put my feelers out in some other directions until God raises up someone else from the Seaside family.  The weather was more than a little bit eerie while we were meeting.  The sky was really dark.  It was windy.  And the rain was coming down in buckets.

When I left the meeting and made my mad dash to the car, I noticed on my Fire Department phone ap that a fire call had gone out almost an hour before.  I knew they would probably still be there, so I pulled out onto the seawall and headed that way.  The address was a house on 39^th Street, which happens to be one of the arteries that leads north off of the seawall, so I turned there.  It didn’t take long to see just how much rain we had been having.  The street was pretty flooded, and the further inland I got, the worse the flooding got.  I was in our Equinox instead of the truck, so I had to be really careful to stay in the center of the street.  After the second time of easing through an intersection and hearing the water lapping against the bottom of the car, I began second-guessing my decision.  Without at least a bunker coat and fire helmet, I would be wading up to the scene either struggling to stay under an umbrella or just embracing the moment and welcoming the drenching.  I did get close enough to see that the fire fighters were already rolling up hoses, so I knew the fire was out and the scene was under control.  I still hoped to get close enough to touch base with the guys as they cleaned up, but as it turned out, the closest I could get was a good block away.  I stopped there in the middle of the street and watched for a while, behind the police barricade and one other car that had parked and had its flashers going.  Of course my inner wimp kicked in then.  I bailed.  It took a while to get turned around, and even longer to get far enough west on Ave O do be able to drive even close to the speed limit.  The farther west I got, though, the less flooding I faced.  I managed to get to 53^rd Street, and then onto Ave S.  From here I was home free.  Even though I didn’t get to the scene, I’m still in awe and very proud of the fire fighters who braved the flood conditions and sloshed their way to put this fire out.  Nice job, Galveston Fire and Rescue.

2 Thessalonians 1:6-7 says, “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.”

Father, thank you once again for literally walking with the fire crews through the fire and the flood yesterday.  Amen.