The day of the fire in Lebanon

Haha, I have a pre-fire and post-fire race now. 

 

Let me unfold the tale for you. We were in mountainous suburbs outside of Beirut, Lebanon. My mind had been running at the highest of capacities for days, itching for analysis, aching for a problem to solve, in need of something to keep it preoccupied. When I was anxiety prone, this state set off all kinds of bells in my head, now I know that my mind just gets restless and needs to be engaged in some good old fashioned THINKIN every once in a while 🙂 

 

I woke up to sweet Jenny shuffling around the room holding her phone light. I looked at the sky and saw it glowing a strange color. Next, at my phone: 5:37am. Was the sun rising? Eh? Eh?? Why Is that guy yelling? Wait, why is more than one person yelling?? 

 

Jenny came near my bed and said: “Ari, there’s a fire.” 

“A what?” 

 

“There’s a big fire outside.” I rolled out of bed, startled, and followed her to the back patio. As soon as I cleared our ladder, a wall of heat hit me. I looked and saw that it was burning closer to the building above us, but it was still very near. People were running and shouting. 

“Well,” I said, “we should leave.” Jenny woke the boys up and I got Molly, kneeling on the bottom of her bed. She asked me to repeat myself, which I did in the calmest, most soothing, but clear tone I could muster. She sat up as I heard Jenny briefing the boys. I heard Jake hoot in excitement, he’s a firefighter at home. 

 

We gathered our things and my mind and heart raced as I tried to think of what to do next. I prayed, asking God to show me how to be decisive and deliberate, but to not be fearful or frantic. I’ve been listening to ”I’ve got the Joy” by the common hymnal and Dee wilson a lot and his lyrics ran on repeat in my head throughout the morning. “Greens and Beans and Corns and things, we gonna have some crop, we gonna have some crop and praise the Lord.” We brought our passports and bibles and anything that was important to us and ordered a taxi, knowing the re was a possibility that it would all be gone by the end of the day. 

 I pictured the five of us having to pick our way down the mountain on our own with no ride and started praying that someone would be able to get to us. The hallway in the apartment was full of smoke, and you could feel the fear of the people around us as we made our way outside. At the bottom of the stairs, we realized that the fire was burning on 2 sides of our building, and Jake darted closer to take a better look. I huffed impatiently, turning to my other side to try and signal that we were leaving, fighting a losing battle with curiosity. 

We had to head up a hill at our apartment complex in order to meet the person picking us up, and we took it slowly, covering our mouths to avoid at least some degree of smoke inhalation. I watched the faces of my teammates as the fire came into view. Faces that had moments before been masked by darkness were exposed by the light coming from the flames. I saw a little bit of fear, a little bit of hiding, a little bit of worry, a little bit of questioning, some(successful) attempts to hold onto peace, and it started to dawn on me how badly I wanted to protect these people from this moment. How badly I wanted them to still be sleeping at home in comfortable beds, dreaming sweet dreams and not experiencing this frightening moment. My mind kicked up another notch, trying to think through possibilities and ways I could help and what I could do and offer. “Lord, please help me, please have your will be done.” 

 

Someone pulled up to us and asked if we needed a ride as Jake went towards the fire and the team went away from it. I went after him. We went back a forth for a minute or so, his firefighter brain in full swing as he pointed out mistakes and things that were going against protocol and observed all the ways that the fire could be better fought. 

“It’s not safe for the team to stay here, we need to go.” He looked at me for a moment thinking about what I said and agreed, joining me to get in the car that had reached us. 

 

A couple of minutes into the ride Jacob started going off again about the fire. The team tensed a little bit as we listened and then I put my hand on Jake’s shoulder sternly and said the words that were bouncing around my mind in the way they do when they’re from the Lord. These words were the 2nd to last thing I wanted to say, and my first choice was something along the lines of: “we’re leaving, stop talking.” Instead, what I felt led to say was: “Look, I can’t make you come with us, but I need you to pray to God and make a choice.” There was complete stillness in the car, as we all stopped breathing, waiting for what God would say. 

 

“Alright, I’m gettin out.” Jake tapped our driver’s seat. “Here’s good.” And he opened the door and headed back toward our burning apartment holding my phone. Molly leaned against me, and I put my arm around here, hoping to provide her a little bit of comfort. 

 

I didn’t look to the right or the left, I only prayed. I felt a powerful peace come over me, all my panic gone, and reassurance came. We all prayed aloud for Jake and the homes and families and residents we’d just driven away from as our taxi zipped us down the mountain to safety.

 

We arrived at the other team’s apartment, softly knocking at the door. It was now around 6:15 or 6:30. Stone came and answered, surprised at our arrival. 

“Good morning!” I said, somewhat cheerily as I moved past him to talk to my sleepy co-leader Brandon. 

 

I knelt in front of him and had to say it twice before it started registering and then I set about protocol: contact Steph, contact office, fill out an incident report, contact our Lebanese host, etc etc. I sat near Molly and kept a close eye on Aaron and Jenny. 

 

Were they also feeling the temptation to give in to fear? Were they also fighting to stay calm? How are their hearts? Are they afraid? Do they feel a little bit like crying too? 

 

I got a hold of our mentor in Gainesville, Steph and told her what was happening and where Jake was. She prayed with me over the phone and encouraged me. 

 

The team whose apartment we landed at started heading out for the day, but Brandon stayed with us. I had a hard time stepping away from my own team, even for a moment. I wanted to be close and make sure they were okay and that their needs were being met. I wanted to know how they were doing, but I had the distinct feeling that if I asked I might burst into tears, which I surmised wouldn’t be helpful, so I kept that question to myself. 

 

Am I willing to lead out of my weakness? 

 

As I stepped into the bathroom, wrestling to get myself to close the door all the way, I heard Brandon laugh and shut the lock, knowing that everybody was still okay. Our host asked if we still wanted to come to ministry that day while recommending that we shouldn’t, and we all accepted her gracious offer to stay home. When I came back out the team had decided to watch The Shack. 

 

Molly and I prayed together and got that Brandon and I should go check on Jake at 8:00am. Not two minutes after we hopped into the car, Jake messaged us to let us know he was okay. We got to him pretty quickly, the news on the radio informing us of the various fires burning around the country. Hundreds of them. My heart began to race as I pictured how dangerous that could’ve been and my heart broke for all the people trying to protect their homes and their businesses and families. So far, no casualties, which was very, very exciting. We prayed again. I thanked Brandon for coming with me and for staying with our team. 

 

We arrived and got Jake, safe and sound, eyes aglow. My heart leapt as he came into view. “This has been my favorite day of the race.” He said, beaming. “But, we should get out of here because they need to secure the area.” 

 

Our same driver came back and picked us up.

“After you left me, I got lost. You have saved me,” he said, as the three of us piled in. We all laughed a tired, but happy laugh and sank into our seats. 

 

Satan tried to tempt me with thoughts of failure and tried to trick me into thinking that I’d been foolish and callous. I felt like he was wearing a fruit hat and a shiny crop top and shimmying, trying to distract me out of thinking about God and what He’d done for our team by trying to make everything about me. But I felt reassured that I’d followed exactly what had been asked of me as it was asked. I’d prayed desperately a couple of days prior that God would help me exercise my faith and give me opportunities to choose Him and His ways in hard moments and He certainly provided. 

 

He is so incredibly faithful and so incredibly good. I’m learning everyday to rely on Him more and more and more. Through fires and rains and deserts and strangers and protocols and everything and anything, I’m learning to count on Him. 

 

Then, only a couple of days later, protests and riots began all over Lebanon, but that’s a post for another day 🙂 

ON THAT THRILLING NOTE: I AN FUNDRAISING AGAIN!! Please consider partnering with me to Send me out to learn and grow and journey further with the Lord, to lead another group of believers into a deeper relationship with God, to reach the unreached and share Hope with the hopeless!! 

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I hope you feel encouraged and excited. Life with God is the greatest adventure!! you’re so loved!!!!! 

Ari