God uses anything and everything to break down walls to the Gospel. Nothing is wasted and nothing is trivial with God. All that the Lord does is purposeful and intentional––even a house fire.

Recently, we were awoken to find our kitchen on fire! A bright orange glow illuminated through the thick smoke-filled midnight air. The fire had tripped our breaker so our power was out, which meant our water pump was no longer working. No water pump = no water to put out the fire!

Not knowing the number for the equivalent of “911” here, we began yelling for our neighbors to help! Within minutes, several men came running through our doors carrying buckets of water. Organized chaos ensued for about 20 long minutes while the men ran back and forth from their homes bringing more and more water, and eventually the fire was put out.

As we waited for the sun to rise on our day, as a family, we began praising God for His goodness and protection. We began recounting all the blessings that He had already lavished upon us that morning. Our neighbors, clearly, were one of them!

But still, why did God have it so that our neighbors served us so selflessly? We are the ones who moved here to serve them. We were slightly confused. What was He doing? Yet, we trusted Him––that He does all things well.

The answers began to slowly surface as the weeks passed. Our neighbors that live caddy-corner to us (the ones that never really smiled or seemed to welcome a conversation with us), have since begun to laugh and talk and smile a bit more. A few neighbors that we had yet to meet down the road have come to our home asking how we are, and we’ve begun new relationships with them. They all seem more comfortable around us, less on-guard or suspicious of “the foreigners”––even bringing us food!

As always, God knew exactly what He was doing. He has humbled us before their eyes, and in doing so, has allowed us to be better received by them; and in turn, our hope is that one day they will receive and embrace the Good News that we’ve come to bring to them.

What a glorious and marvelous God we serve!