Countdown to 30: Day 17

One of my favorite memories as a kid was the night that the church fellowship hall burned down. I know that it seems odd to refer to that night as a favorite memory. However, for a five or six year old child, it was quite an exciting event.

We were sitting at our house when Ms. Brenda drove up in a panic. "The church is on fire! The church is on fire!" For a kid, it is exciting to watch anything burn. We jumped in the car and drove over to Ms. Brenda's house to watch the church burn because she lived right behind the church. In fact we had the perfect view of the fire from her front window and front porch because she lived right behind the fellowship hall.

People from the church started arriving to watch the scene. There was smoke everywhere. Even more fun for a kid was all of the fire trucks and firemen that responded. There were sirens and trucks and lights and ladders and hoses and water everywhere while the building was burning. Dad went over to help move the piano out of the sanctuary with the other men of the church. I still to this day do not know why they wouldn't just collect the insurance money and replace it with a better piano, but I guess it is hard to think rationally when the church is on fire.

At one point they were worried that the fire would spread to the nursery area and the sanctuary. The roof was being soaked with water to prevent the spread. We moved down to the youth minister's house to watch the rest of the commotion at some point. They have a son that was around the same age as me and my brother, so the three of us and any other kids that came up were playing out in their backyard. It was still close enough to see what all was going on, but far enough away that the smoke smell was not overwhelming. I remember us catching "fireflies" that night, but we did not understand why the fireflies didn't light up again. I suspect that we were really catching ashes!

My parents still have a Bible that survived the fire. Everything around the Bible was burned up and melted. However, the Bible just had some soot on it from the smoke damage. The brand of Bible - Fireside! Awesome!