I don't remember the exact turn of events, but we found out that we could get a two bedroom for not too much, and so Jen moved back in with us. We put what furniture we salvaged in storage., and at some point, we worked out a plan so that Jen wouldn't have to pay rent if she would keep up with the housework. The Motel provided maid service, but none of us were ever around when the maid was, and none of us really wanted anyone in there when we weren't home, so....so much for maid service.
It's an old place. I think it used to be called The Manor apartments. The plumbing wasn't great. A couple times a month, we would be called and asked not to use water because our water was overflowing in the room downstairs. The furniture had been used about a hundred times before. And the walls were definitely too thin. But it was a resting place. And once again, i began to realize how the fire had freed us from things that were holding us back. And God did a lot of healing, renewing, and reviving there.
I'm not sure if i realized it before, but the Lodge Motel was a place of comfort for me.
I didn't have to mow the lawn. I didn't have to sign a lease. If i didn't want to, i didn't even have to clean.
But the best thing i remember about that place is the wind. My whole life, i've loved the wind..and the sound of chimes singing in the wind. And in our time of seeming homelessness, God gave me this furnished apartment with a patio porch that happened to be in exactly the right place in the complex. It seemed like the wind was always blowing there. My chimes almost never stopped singing. And if there was a real wind around, all the chimes would sound together so loud and beautiful that i would jump for joy and run to the porch to listen up close and feel the wind in my face. When we left there, even though i knew it was a good thing to be moving on, i hated to leave my porch. It was the best porch i've ever had....but the one on my mansion in Heaven is even better!
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Chapter 7 1/2: What now?
.......well, what now?
The fire person walked us through everything and asked James a hundred questions to make sure he hadn't set the house on fire on purpose.
As it turned out, James had been cooking some french fries or other greasy potato product in oil on the stove when Jen-pa called needing a ride home from work. James quickly turned the burner off and rushed off (french fries in hand) to pick up Jen. That's pretty much exactly what happened except the part about turning the burner off. That was actually when he accidently turned the burner under the hot oil to "high". The origin of the fire was obviously coming from that pan of hot oil that had apparently caught fire and ignited the cabinets.
In chapter 7, i told you about the heroic man who resorted to firefighting by water hose. The fire man said that the fire was pretty much extinguished by the time the fire truck even arrived. And because of that man, the fire never left the kitchen. The rest of the house "only" had smoke damage.
If anyone ever uses the word "only" to describe smoke damage to you, don't be fooled. As we looked around, we thought we could probably stay the night in our bed and figure out the rest in the morning. Emotionally drained, we tried to sleep. We had no power, no light, and the horrible odor of smoke the permeated our house quickly made sleeping impossible, and James made the final decision when he found it painful to breathe because of the thick air.
So we gathered what money we had and got in the car and went to find someplace to stay for the night. We found a very small hotel room where the nice lady in the office agreed to let us rent the room for the one person rate, so that we would have something left over. So we were able to sleep and shower and try to gather our thoughts. And we started making phone calls from the hotel to find some place where we could rent maybe something furnished until we could get into an apartment. We were grasping at straws, but it turned out that the hotel right next to the one we were staying in was actually once an apartment complex, but now they furnished the apartments and rented them by the day, week, or month. Now, you might not think that sounds so great, but we thought it sounded FANTASTIC. And when we went and checked the place out, it was fantastic. See, as we started to try to salvage things from our rent house, we found that pretty much everything was definitely damaged. Here's the part where you shouldn't be fooled about "just smoke damage." Soot was everywhere and in everything. It made it's way into closed boxes, the venting on the back of electronics, clothes, everywhere. We ended up throwing away a computer, a VCR, a coffee maker......so many things that we were sure we could salvage. Anything plastic that you use in the kitchen is now pretty much poisonous.
At any rate. While all this was going on, Jen found some place else to stay ( i don't remember where), and when she came back to collect her things, we found God had done a miracle.
******side track******
one of the things that broke my heart the most was that jen had to go through a fire. maybe not the way we had, but i wanted our home to be a safe place for her. i remembered how hard it was to lose everything i had, and i grieved that jen had found herself in that place in our home.
*********************
When Jen went to get her things, we found that nothing of hers was damaged. Her door had been shut during the fire, and her clothes did not even smell of smoke. Thank you Jesus! He is so good and merciful!
God kept us, and the three of us were soon living in a 2 bedroom 2 bath hotel apartment at the Lodge Motel. All bills paid and paying less rent than we had been in our rent house. Again, as i said, that might not sound great to you, but we had a clean safe place to live. It felt like home, and when we left, it was very hard for me to leave.
Ok, that's enough for now.
And for those of you who are apparently keeping a time line, this was August 2004. We lived happily at the Lodge Motel until March 2005.
The fire person walked us through everything and asked James a hundred questions to make sure he hadn't set the house on fire on purpose.
As it turned out, James had been cooking some french fries or other greasy potato product in oil on the stove when Jen-pa called needing a ride home from work. James quickly turned the burner off and rushed off (french fries in hand) to pick up Jen. That's pretty much exactly what happened except the part about turning the burner off. That was actually when he accidently turned the burner under the hot oil to "high". The origin of the fire was obviously coming from that pan of hot oil that had apparently caught fire and ignited the cabinets.
In chapter 7, i told you about the heroic man who resorted to firefighting by water hose. The fire man said that the fire was pretty much extinguished by the time the fire truck even arrived. And because of that man, the fire never left the kitchen. The rest of the house "only" had smoke damage.
If anyone ever uses the word "only" to describe smoke damage to you, don't be fooled. As we looked around, we thought we could probably stay the night in our bed and figure out the rest in the morning. Emotionally drained, we tried to sleep. We had no power, no light, and the horrible odor of smoke the permeated our house quickly made sleeping impossible, and James made the final decision when he found it painful to breathe because of the thick air.
So we gathered what money we had and got in the car and went to find someplace to stay for the night. We found a very small hotel room where the nice lady in the office agreed to let us rent the room for the one person rate, so that we would have something left over. So we were able to sleep and shower and try to gather our thoughts. And we started making phone calls from the hotel to find some place where we could rent maybe something furnished until we could get into an apartment. We were grasping at straws, but it turned out that the hotel right next to the one we were staying in was actually once an apartment complex, but now they furnished the apartments and rented them by the day, week, or month. Now, you might not think that sounds so great, but we thought it sounded FANTASTIC. And when we went and checked the place out, it was fantastic. See, as we started to try to salvage things from our rent house, we found that pretty much everything was definitely damaged. Here's the part where you shouldn't be fooled about "just smoke damage." Soot was everywhere and in everything. It made it's way into closed boxes, the venting on the back of electronics, clothes, everywhere. We ended up throwing away a computer, a VCR, a coffee maker......so many things that we were sure we could salvage. Anything plastic that you use in the kitchen is now pretty much poisonous.
At any rate. While all this was going on, Jen found some place else to stay ( i don't remember where), and when she came back to collect her things, we found God had done a miracle.
******side track******
one of the things that broke my heart the most was that jen had to go through a fire. maybe not the way we had, but i wanted our home to be a safe place for her. i remembered how hard it was to lose everything i had, and i grieved that jen had found herself in that place in our home.
*********************
When Jen went to get her things, we found that nothing of hers was damaged. Her door had been shut during the fire, and her clothes did not even smell of smoke. Thank you Jesus! He is so good and merciful!
God kept us, and the three of us were soon living in a 2 bedroom 2 bath hotel apartment at the Lodge Motel. All bills paid and paying less rent than we had been in our rent house. Again, as i said, that might not sound great to you, but we had a clean safe place to live. It felt like home, and when we left, it was very hard for me to leave.
Ok, that's enough for now.
And for those of you who are apparently keeping a time line, this was August 2004. We lived happily at the Lodge Motel until March 2005.
Friday, May 5, 2006
CHAPTER 7: CAN YOU SAY FIRE NUMBER 3?
ok, let's see.
my mother-in-law would say we were just bee-boppin' along. everything is grand.
you know poor priorities can get you in bad places. i don't remember all the details at this point. but i do remember that for some reason money wasn't coming in anymore like it had been, and well, that car that the Lord had allowed us through don and brenda....we had to give it back. this is one of my greatest regrets. but the Lord has ministered a great forgiveness to us through the body of Christ....and that's all i will say about that.
during the time that we had that car, my friend meredith (you probably know meredith) had a wreck in her beautiful white nissan sentra (no fault of her own), and subsequently purchased her chevy tracker. meredith voluntarily provided my and husband and me transportation wherever we needed to go from november through march. that's just amazing! she has always said that her truck is God's truck. in march, we finally got to a place where we could purchase a vehicle from a local used car lot, and we bought a '92 nissan sentra red. gorgeous. exactly what i wanted. and it was the first car i ever had that was MY car. i think now that that was a mistake. the MY part i mean. should've learned something from the november through march example. should've been God's car from the outset.
back up a little.......the year before, jeremy peterson lived with us from december through may--may is when he married meredith. then when jeremy moved in with meredith (after their wedding), then well, jennifer, who was living with meredith at the time, moved in with us. this was kind of a fun arrangement, and i am very grateful for the relationships that i was able to build in both of those cases.
jennifer is one of my favorite people in the world. for those of you who might be thinking, "which jennifer?" jennifer bairfield, or "jen-pa"--that's the one that distinguishes her for me. 8)
ok, so jennifer moved in in may, and we've had a car since march--yeah, that sounds right...i hope no one ever tries to prove exact details from these entries. there are some specific dates that i know are correct, but others are estimations. 8)
ok...so...we're "bee-boppin'" along through life...everything is grand. 8)
i'm building a relationship with jen-pa that i have wanted to build since we took issues together (a class at my church), and since the Lord has provided us a car, we're able to provide transportation to jen to go to work, etc. i love those rides. jen would be in the back seat early in the morning, and would suddenly bust out with a veggie tales song or some other song she knew from daycare. hehe
"..... cause your his cheeseburger...his precious cheeseburger...." and that's one song i hadn't heard before, and i thought she was crazy! hehe
ok--nice little trip down memory lane, now back to the story
this part is a little hard to write--it's a whole other emotional element in my life.
but here's a date i'm sure of. it's my mom's birthday. august 20, 2004. i was at work at my desk, and my phone rang, and it was the ranch hand (for lack of a better word), wally, who worked for my land lady.
he called to tell me that my house was on fire.
you can't imagine the emotions that went through me and the thoughts that went through my mind at that moment. i didn't believe him, first of all. and i know i got pretty loud, because everyone around me was immediately looking at me trying to figure out what i had been told. i was starting to cry but holding it back and trying to be level headed.
he said he just thought i would want to know...might want to get over there.
i didn't have the car that day. i thought james was home with the car, but wally said that james had left not ten minutes ago.
where could he have gone?
how is it possible that we could have 2 house fires in 5 years?
what kind of horror story IS this?!
so like i said, i didn't have my car, so a friend/co-worker immediately offered to take me home.
when we got there, the gate was wide open , and there was a fire truck in the driveway--that familiar smoky-ness in the air.....but you couldn't see the evidence of a fire from the front., and i the fireman actually took me on a tour through my house.
it didn't seem so bad....i mean, we have something left! it even looks kind of liveable.....right?
well, i was feeling a little bit better...thinking this wasn't so bad.
but when i saw the look on my husband's face when he got home.....it still makes me cry.....all those same emotions and horrors going through his mind......
"a fire!? i was just here! how could there have been a fire???!!!!"
well, there was a man we barely knew (who did something very unwise) that allowed us to not lose everything again.....the land lady's son-in-law saw the smoke, busted in the back door with a garden hose, and lay on the floor and pointed the water toward where he thought the fire was coming from. he could've died, but i'm so thankful for that man......i'm not sure we could've taken losing everything....again..... 8)
next time......
my mother-in-law would say we were just bee-boppin' along. everything is grand.
you know poor priorities can get you in bad places. i don't remember all the details at this point. but i do remember that for some reason money wasn't coming in anymore like it had been, and well, that car that the Lord had allowed us through don and brenda....we had to give it back. this is one of my greatest regrets. but the Lord has ministered a great forgiveness to us through the body of Christ....and that's all i will say about that.
during the time that we had that car, my friend meredith (you probably know meredith) had a wreck in her beautiful white nissan sentra (no fault of her own), and subsequently purchased her chevy tracker. meredith voluntarily provided my and husband and me transportation wherever we needed to go from november through march. that's just amazing! she has always said that her truck is God's truck. in march, we finally got to a place where we could purchase a vehicle from a local used car lot, and we bought a '92 nissan sentra red. gorgeous. exactly what i wanted. and it was the first car i ever had that was MY car. i think now that that was a mistake. the MY part i mean. should've learned something from the november through march example. should've been God's car from the outset.
back up a little.......the year before, jeremy peterson lived with us from december through may--may is when he married meredith. then when jeremy moved in with meredith (after their wedding), then well, jennifer, who was living with meredith at the time, moved in with us. this was kind of a fun arrangement, and i am very grateful for the relationships that i was able to build in both of those cases.
jennifer is one of my favorite people in the world. for those of you who might be thinking, "which jennifer?" jennifer bairfield, or "jen-pa"--that's the one that distinguishes her for me. 8)
ok, so jennifer moved in in may, and we've had a car since march--yeah, that sounds right...i hope no one ever tries to prove exact details from these entries. there are some specific dates that i know are correct, but others are estimations. 8)
ok...so...we're "bee-boppin'" along through life...everything is grand. 8)
i'm building a relationship with jen-pa that i have wanted to build since we took issues together (a class at my church), and since the Lord has provided us a car, we're able to provide transportation to jen to go to work, etc. i love those rides. jen would be in the back seat early in the morning, and would suddenly bust out with a veggie tales song or some other song she knew from daycare. hehe
"..... cause your his cheeseburger...his precious cheeseburger...." and that's one song i hadn't heard before, and i thought she was crazy! hehe
ok--nice little trip down memory lane, now back to the story
this part is a little hard to write--it's a whole other emotional element in my life.
but here's a date i'm sure of. it's my mom's birthday. august 20, 2004. i was at work at my desk, and my phone rang, and it was the ranch hand (for lack of a better word), wally, who worked for my land lady.
he called to tell me that my house was on fire.
you can't imagine the emotions that went through me and the thoughts that went through my mind at that moment. i didn't believe him, first of all. and i know i got pretty loud, because everyone around me was immediately looking at me trying to figure out what i had been told. i was starting to cry but holding it back and trying to be level headed.
he said he just thought i would want to know...might want to get over there.
i didn't have the car that day. i thought james was home with the car, but wally said that james had left not ten minutes ago.
where could he have gone?
how is it possible that we could have 2 house fires in 5 years?
what kind of horror story IS this?!
please God! not again!
so like i said, i didn't have my car, so a friend/co-worker immediately offered to take me home.
when we got there, the gate was wide open , and there was a fire truck in the driveway--that familiar smoky-ness in the air.....but you couldn't see the evidence of a fire from the front., and i the fireman actually took me on a tour through my house.
it didn't seem so bad....i mean, we have something left! it even looks kind of liveable.....right?
well, i was feeling a little bit better...thinking this wasn't so bad.
but when i saw the look on my husband's face when he got home.....it still makes me cry.....all those same emotions and horrors going through his mind......
"a fire!? i was just here! how could there have been a fire???!!!!"
well, there was a man we barely knew (who did something very unwise) that allowed us to not lose everything again.....the land lady's son-in-law saw the smoke, busted in the back door with a garden hose, and lay on the floor and pointed the water toward where he thought the fire was coming from. he could've died, but i'm so thankful for that man......i'm not sure we could've taken losing everything....again..... 8)
next time......
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