FIRE

Well I just thought I would give you all an update about the fires around here. We are currently safe and has not even been close to evacuation. It has been crazy though because I smell smoke everyday and it's thick in the air. The school kids have had to stay inside away from it all and they even closed some of the colleges around us this week. I have even found ashes on my car this week as well. So in the middle of this Angie and I decided to make an evacuation plan in case we had to evacuate because the Santiago fire in Irvine is the closest to us and was still burning very strong. So we set on a place to meet if we couldn't go to our home and we packed suitcases and loaded the most important things to us in a box in the car. We also put in flashlights, water bottles, sleeping bags and food. Then we mapped out the best way to Arizona using the open freeways because many that we would normally take have been closed down. It got really scary for a while and we were looking online everyday to see if we were near evacuation. It was really hard to try to pack one box and one suitcase of things, keeping in mind that everything would burn that I couldn't take. It made me think of the things that really matter to me and I came to realize that a lot of the "things" I had didn't matter. All that I kept praying for this week was that Angie and I would be safe. All this has made me realize how much I depend on the Lord. I mean we are in the middle of fires on all sides and the wind earlier this week was blowing towards the ocean. If the wind hadn't changed, I worried that we would be trapped in the middle with nowhere to go because all the roads would be closed or burned. Thankfully, the wind changed direction and the fires are settling down even though they are still raging. I think Southern California is in for a huge after-shock of all this and I am not quite sure what to expect. It is scary, but we are safe and I am so thankful.. Thank you for all your prayers. I have felt them. I am sure thankful for all of you and for those of you who called to make sure I was safe.