Wildfire at Our Doorstep – Please Pray!

Hey, I am Aaron. And I’m Jennifer.

And we’re the hosts of the Marriage After God podcast. Our desire is to help you cultivate a marriage that chases boldly after God’s will for your life together.

In this podcast, we aim to talk about topics that cover marriage, faith, parenting, friendship, and much more.

Sometimes we study through parts of the Bible and sometimes we discuss more specific marriage issues, but no matter what we talk about, our heart is to always point you and your spouse back to God and His word.

We always try to be real and transparent as we share stories from our own marriage and the things God is teaching us along the way.

With everything we share here on the podcast, we hope to encourage you to draw closer to God and to each other.

So we want to invite you to subscribe to our show wherever you watch or listen, YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, or any other platform you prefer.

We are so glad you’re here and we pray that our discussion truly blesses you and your marriage.

Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.

Okay, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Mary Jeffrey God podcast.

This one’s going to be a little bit different. I’m actually shocked that we are able to record it because

We almost left.

We’ve been in a whirlwind

Twice now.

Normally we share life notes with you guys, just updates on what’s going on with the family

This episode.

But this whole episode

Is a life note

Episode. Is that basically, so we’re just going to jump right in and it’s probably going to be a shorter episode just because the nature of it, but this week has been,

Yeah, so we live in central Oregon and central Oregon for the last, gosh, six years, seven years. Every year we have what’s called fire season, and I don’t know what it is, but you can look on a fire map and the entire Pacific Northwest seems to be on fire.

I just read a headline today that this is the worst

Fire

Season fire at this stage in the year. Yeah,

Yeah, this is late. They ever had, usually they’re over by now,

Like July, August.

So currently our neighborhood where we live in central Oregon,

We live in the forest,

Is on a level two evacuation notice. And I don’t know if you know what that is, but we’re just now learning about it too. There’s three levels. There’s ready, set, go. Okay, so ready is green, set is yellow, go is red,

Which a lot of people were leaving on

The green on one and people are leaving on yellow too.

The yellow one. Yesterday we were set to level two and I was in town and I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to get through. I didn’t know how any of this worked and I was coming home to make sure that we had our bags and everything in case we had to leave and on the way, just car after car, trailer after trailer, leaving our area, which all these different things kind of stir up anxious thoughts and anxiety of okay, what’s best, what to do, and having wisdom and all of that.

And this is currently real time for us. We’re currently still at level two. We’re

Still in level two.

And if it goes to level three, essentially you, you’re

Supposed to go right away, you

Got to go,

Don’t even grab anything. So we have cars packed. We have everything that we need even for the baby because this week has been so intense because I’m also scheduling out my C-section for next week about to have a baby. I’m about to have a baby. And so I keep thinking in my head, this can’t happen. This can’t happen. What are we going to

Do? And we’ve seen stories in the areas that we live of, entire neighborhoods burning to the ground over the last handful of years, which is devastating. And you never think like, well, that’s not going to happen to us. We live in, maybe for some reason our area is special, but we have trees everywhere. And there was a thunderstorm that happened a week ago, and it probably started from lightning, actually don’t know

What caused it, but I think there was a lot of fires that were

Started. There’s a lot of fires that were started and it went from a hundred acres and then the next morning it was a thousand acres, and then the next day was 6,000

Acres. It was really fast.

And today it’s over 10,000 acres burning and it’s headed straight towards our neighborhood

With all the wind and everything.

So before we go any further, I would just like everyone to pray for us genuinely. I’m not one to usually get stressed about things. You probably know this about me, but I’ve been kind of stressed and this fire is making me realize how much I hold onto our things. Our home that we just finished building two years ago. And so I’ve been

One of the kids

Wrestling with that.

One of the kids was really worried for you about our grass because you’ve worked all year to get it so green. And they’re like, oh, dad’s not going to like this.

A part of me would be happy if the grass burnt and I could start over. So there’s a part, I just want to start over with this grass

On a lighter note. Aaron did all the irrigation and grass last year for us, and so he’s been babying it and the kids recognized it and I thought it was a really sweet, thoughtful comment that one of them made. But besides the grass, that’s so sweet, we know you don’t care about the grass. We know that this is our home and these are our things and we’re about to bring a baby home. I’m thinking about having a C-section, which I already know how recovery is for a natural birth. I have no idea what

This, it might be in our trailer.

So I just keep reminding myself to keep my hands and heart open to what the Lord has, and it just feels a little bit chaotic. But I remember when we first got the news of the fire, it was kind of like, okay, well they’re going to get that out. And

There’s always fires

And there’s always fires. They’re all

Over.

Then when it got set to level one, I put the kids to bed and I went and packed their backpacks. Like if anything, they have to have clothes I can’t afford and I can’t think about being in the hospital and having a baby. I can’t think about whether they have clean underwear or not. So I packed backpacks and put ’em by the front door. By level two, I was really stressed because you start thinking like, oh my goodness, what matters the most to me? What matters to me that I can’t replace?

What are the things that if we don’t grab it, we’re going to regret?

So I’ll be honest, I grabbed some picture frames off the wall that weren’t photos. They were my kids’ artwork that they made when they were 2, 3, 4 years old that I can’t replace. You just take pictures of money phone because sentimental, I should have just done that would’ve been easier. But I put those in the car

When you’re

I stuff in the car, Aaron doesn’t even know about.

When you start getting evacuation levels, I’ll be honest, you kind of stop fully thinking. It’s like, what do we do? I don’t know what to do. Okay, should we leave now? What should we grab?

I felt like I was packing a bag for myself just to have clothes, but also packing for the hospital maybe. Well,

Yeah, you’re grabbing baby clothes. You’re like,

I was grabbing baby clothes. I was like, the baby can’t be naked. You’re probably thinking we could just grab stuff as we go. But I was not okay with that.

No, I wasn’t thinking that, to be honest. Don’t even know what I was thinking. I was like, all I was thinking was the only thing that’s important is our documents and our kids, but then we’ve had a little bit more time. So I’m like, okay, now I’ll get this stuff and now I’ll have this stuff ready.

And another huge worry from the kids was about our cat who likes to go outside, and we kept her inside for two days while we went through level one and level two. And then last night as we were going to bed, she got out.

So here’s what Zach, we were having this men’s meeting and it was really good, and someone knocks on our door and it’s like a fire volunteer. They’re going through all the neighborhoods,

Letting people know where

You’re at. Hey, we’re level two.

You need to be ready to go

If we get to level three. And they would ask, are you planning and leaving? If we get to level three, essentially you should go at level three. And I was not even thinking about it, and the cat just ran right past me and I’m like, oh no. And I’m like, no. If they would’ve went to level three, would’ve been gone. And Kat’s like, okay, good luck, Kat. You’re going to have to figure this

Out. But she’s back home now. She

Came back home

This morning. So if we still get called out on level three, she

Hasn’t, she’s going to go with us. And we’ve been vigilant today to keep her in. So

Something that was really cool was, which I honestly wasn’t sure that we’d make it to today, but in looking at the forecast

As in not evacuating,

As in not evacuating, sorry,

Surviving, we will survive.

I told the kids that I said, we’ll survive, which I do want to talk about the kids in a second, but I thought this was really cool. There was a 25% chance of rain today in the morning, and it kept changing even. It kept getting later and less,

But we’ve been praying nonstop for

Everybody has been praying, and it was so cool to see kind of all day sprinkled and rain.

Well, we woke up this morning and it was pouring.

I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet, and I heard the dripping of the rain and I got emotional. It was so much peace and so much joy, and I just kept praying that it would continue on throughout the day. But when we were doing family bible time, I mentioned to the kids about the miracles of Jesus and how I was like, guys, he even took a little bit of fish and bread and he the thousands, how cool is that? And how did it just keep breaking off? And they just had enough and then they had leftovers. And I’m like, we need to pray like that for the rain that those clouds are holding so much more water than we, okay. So as soon as I get done with Bible time with you, I text a neighbor to check in on her. I’m like, Hey, you guys doing okay? And so we’re going back and forth and she’s like, I said, how’s your daughter? And she said, she’s doing good. She goes, we talked about the feeding of the 5,000 today. Oh, that’s cool. And how we need to delusion the clouds. And I was like, I did the same thing.

Well, and on top of not just encouraging our kids that God can and could save our home in the neighborhood, and we also get to talk to ’em and be like, Hey, sometimes bad things happen. Our house could burn down, our neighborhood could burn. We don’t want that. But this fire, because the kids were like, maybe God, I think Olive was saying this morning, she’s like, maybe nothing’s going to happen. But God wanted the fire so people would pray

Him be drawn to him. And

I was like, maybe

They haven’t prayed in a while

Yet. I was like, I think people will do that. I said, but also, sometimes fires just happen and they burn down houses and it’s bad. But I said, but you know what? We get to trust God still and worship him still. And so trying to navigate this in the midst of it is

Strange

For us.

We have our own emotions about it and our own thoughts and our own wrestlings, but then we have five kids that are also thinking about all of their stuff and what’s going to happen to our family and is everyone going to be safe? And so as parents, it’s shown us the importance of when you’re already teaching your kids how to pray and being in a constant state of, Hey, let’s pray for this. Let’s pray for that. It was very easy to pray for this emergency and to pray for others and to pray for rain. And

We’ve been praying nonstop. So please be praying the fire is still active right now. It’s still 0% contained, but it’s been raining, not just in our area. If you look on the map, if you have a weather map, the entire Pacific Northwest that’s on fire, it’s raining on, so cool. God’s raining. So I dunno, maybe it’s our prayers. I answer.

So being a family that prays together, I feel like is super important and has brought a lot of peace to our kids’ hearts. And like you said, telling them that we’re going to trust in God no matter what. If our house burns down, or even if our cat didn’t come back home by the time we had to leave all these things, it would be okay because what really matters is us, right?

And so this has been a big thing for us. It still currently is. We’re at home waiting. We’re recording this right now.

We didn’t even have time to go over notes, you guys. We just started doing this.

Yeah, we’re like, we should just ask people for prayer and tell ’em what we’re doing. Yeah. How are we in the midst of this navigating some of this?

Well, I’ll say this. One of the hardest things for me emotionally is considering what next week looks like. I was scheduled to have a C-section. And so thinking about recovery, thinking about where I’ll be, where’s the family going to be, those things have been heavy on my mind. But then my energy level has been so low because I’m right at the end and I’m tired. I’m already not sleeping, and now I’m not sleeping because I’m waiting for alerts throughout the night and when I’m already trying to nest and trying to make sure my house is clean. But now I just feel

Like, and ready for a baby coming.

There’s all this stuff by the front door ready to go with us. And yeah, it’s like I don’t have the energy to go be prepared, to be fully prepared. And maybe that’s what God wanted and me not to be prepared when this baby came and know that it’s going to be okay. I tell my kids, I dunno,

I just remembered Joseph and Mary having to uproot for the census, and she’s literally

10

Months pregnant.

That did not come to my mind at all

During all of this. I just thought about, I was like, we kind of just have that little inkling of that. But she had to go on a

Donkey,

A donkey for however many miles.

I’m glad I don’t have to do that.

We have a

Comfortable ride. If

We’re out of here, we have a trailer we can live in. And we have lived in it before just with seven, not eight. So it should be, it’s

Just a fit. The waiting and the not knowing that really is a hangup. And also the lack of control. I wish I could control the fire. I wish I can control how we respond in our emotion to all of it. I’ve had ups and downs, I’ve had tears I’ve had,

And I usually am very positive. So a friend of mine that also lives in the area was over last night and he kept saying, he’s like, it’s going to be fine. It’s not even going to hop this road. And he kept saying it all night, but towards the end of night he’s like, it’s going to be fine. Right?

Oh, like a question.

Yeah, it’s hard, guys. I’m very similar to that of usually, oh, this is so rare. This kind of stuff’s not happen. But I genuinely was reconciling last night, well, this house could be gone. And I’ve never felt that before. That’s a weird feeling. But it happens. People go through it. Why would we be different?

Yeah, I was just going to say, because we’ve been talking a lot about us and our experience, but we know that there’s a lot of people that have experienced their house burning down or another major disaster, tornadoes, hurricanes, I mean, you name it.

We have friends that live in Florida and disaster have dealt many times with hurricanes. We have friends in the Midwest that have dealt with tornadoes. We used to live in California and earthquake was

Normal. And honestly, aside from even the, I don’t know what to call it, huge scale of damage this could cause. There’s also all those other things that people go through that are really hard, uprooting your family, moving transition,

Loss

Of jobs, loss of

Sickness,

All kinds of loss. And so we just wanted to take a moment and just acknowledge that people are tried all the time. And even just looking at our church community this last year, Aaron, there’s been a lot of families that have walked through really hard things. And so I know that people,

They are currently walking through hard things.

And so I know that our listeners, I know you guys also go through really hard things and we just want to acknowledge that the stamina required to walk through those things. We get it maybe not fully per situation, but what we understand most is that you can’t do it without God. It’s so hard to, I mean, I can’t even fathom going through devastation or hardship without having God and praying to him and asking for his peace and asking for his help. And so we want to encourage you guys today, first and foremost, that if you’re experiencing something really hard and challenging and devastating to be on your knees in prayer and to be surrendered to him,

And there’s a verse that just came to mind. I can’t remember exactly where it’s at, and you might remember, it says, for I cannot compare current struggles to the coming glory and this idea that this life and all of its pain and all of its suffering and all of its struggles along with all of its joys

And

Beauties is so temporary.

That’s what I told the kids.

Yeah, I’m struggling with losing this house that’s start over. That’s going to be devastating at the end of the day. I also just want to be with the Lord. Not that I want to die, but this house is nothing in comparison to eternity. And so just being truly challenged with a heavenly perspective in the midst of our earthly things being threatened. Some things though that it’s caused us to think about, and you don’t want to be an emergency.

Not prepared.

Not prepared. You don’t want to be an emergency and then be thinking about these things. Stuff like our insurance on our house. First of all, you’re supposed to have it, I think to have a loan,

But I think you have. But think every insurance is different. So our recommendation here is just know what your insurance covers. If you’re in an area where there is a high chance of a national or a severe situation,

Make

Sure that there’s coverage for

That wind. So a month ago, there was another fire that was a little bit further than this

One.

And I remember calling my insurance agent, I’m like, am I covered for

Wildfire insurance? We got to make sure.

And he’s like, you’re covered. I’m like, sweet. So just kind of regularly doing a checkup. What’s my insurance cover? Also, we always encourage couples families to have a trust, a living trust. And what this is, is an entity you create that owns everything you own. And there’s something really powerful about that because it protects all of your assets inside of an entity that’s not you.

And it doesn’t mean you have to have a lot to do this. I remember we were first inspired and encouraged to do this when years ago we were going to a marriage ministry and they had a spokesperson come and spend 15, 20 minutes to address all the couples and basically explain how important it is to make sure that this is set up for your family. Because if something were to happen to an asset, or unfortunately if something happened to you and I, how would the kids be able to carry on take care of you? And so it basically protects them legally. It protects your things legally and doesn’t send it through probate, which takes years and money.

So a trust is important. Also, being organized, I have a safe, and in that safe, I put all of our important documents, passports, IDs, everything, anything that’s like we need that because we own those things

And they’re in one bag. So Aaron, this water

Ziploc baggie,

When this fire hit, Aaron handed me the bag right away.

Yeah, it was the first thing who said, go grab the documents. And it’s not that they couldn’t be replaced, but oh, it would

Painful.

Those would be so painful to replace. And so having those things, especially if you’re going to be having all your kids and if you lost everything, what if you need to prove that they’re your children? What if you need to have medical stuff? What if there’s so many things? So having all of your important things in one spot, easy to grab in a protected area, that’s been a huge thing. If we lost everything, but we had those

Things,

At the end of the day, we would be in a way better place than if those things were lost and we had something else.

And then the last one is, and this is all what to do before you ever even hear of an emergency happening, but make a plan with your family of what will you do in the event of fill in the blank, just so that you and your spouse know. Sometimes we’re separated. Last night when we went to level two, we weren’t together. And so that caused a little bit of anxiety like I was calling you, so what are we doing? But we weren’t super prepared right there, but it was more like

We were though because I had my trailer hooked up and I could have met you

Somewhere. Well, I think more so it was me wanting to go on two, but being okay to stay at three. And this tension of not really knowing because we’ve never been here before, but making a plan and knowing where you’ll land in the event of emergency,

You have a note on here for a handout, like a what to grab type thing,

Which I

Thought was a good idea.

So the second set of things is more like, okay, once the emergency hits, here are some things to think about. First, I want to back up just a second because this is really important when what we’ve experienced with this is when an emergency hits, people show up, people call people, text people offer, Hey, if you need a place to stay, hey, we’re praying for you. Hey, are you okay? And I just feel so loved. I feel so thought of, I feel so seen. And I just really appreciate how community works like that. If you guys are not invested in a community where, let’s say there’s an emergency tonight, are there people that are going to check on you?

Who are you going to call?

Yeah, exactly. I just wanted to say that because I think that’s a really important aspect of what we’re learning through this, is that we have people and it feels good and family. So these next practical tips are just in the event of an evacuation or an emergency, this is what I’ve been experiencing.

Yeah, some of this we’re figuring out right now.

So one of my friends sent a little screenshot of an emergency evacuation that I had here on my phone, and it breaks it down with 15 minute warning, 30 minute warning, one hour warning and two hour warning and things to grab in those timeframes. So let’s say it went straight to level three and we only had to get in the car. You could do the 15 minute one and just get your phone charger, the most important things, the documents and the cat and the

Backpack and the children and

The children, the

Children. Don’t forget the kids.

I’m sure that this is a random sheet that you could probably find on Google or you can just create one yourself, but have it probably in those important places with your other documents where you could just check it off really quickly because we haven’t been thinking this whole time. It’s like you start thinking about something and then something else takes your mind from that thing,

Very distracted. It’s hard to think about normal things when you’re like, is this going to burn my house down?

So maybe have a handout of what to grab for your sake.

Something that we’ve been trying to really focus on, because in the midst of an emergency as an adult, you may not recognize how much the children are being affected by your fears, your anxieties. They sense it, excuse me, and taking the time to stop and recognize it. And we’ve stopped several times just to talk to them all like, where’s the fire at? How’s the fire doing?

Our 4-year-old was repeating last night on the way home. This is a really bad situation. This

Is really bad.

It was so cute. But also I heard her, I heard her panic. I heard her, she’s scared, fear. And I got to address it.

And you reminded me like, Hey, see where she’s at?

I said, she’s like, be patient with her. She needs you.

Yeah, go comfort for her. So I was to dry her in and just say, Hey, how are you?

It’s

Okay. We’re going to be okay. And also reminding my kids like, Hey, if we lose the house, that’s okay. We are going to be okay because we will be gone long before that gets here. And so letting ’em know that I’m not worried about my stuff more than I’m worried about them.

So what Erin’s trying to say is, stay calm and make sure you stop to encourage and pray with your children in the event of an emergency. And that means maybe you can’t do it in the midst of grabbing backpacks and things, but once you get in the car and you’re going

Take a breath,

Take a deep breath and remind them that you’re okay and that the situation is okay, even though it’s way different than what they’ve known their whole lives.

And don’t let the cat out. Keep the cat close. Keep your

Animals close and ready to go

So you can grab ’em when you leave. So ours is in the house now. Hopefully she’s still here.

Don’t wait till the last minute to start packing. If you are in an emergency situation and you’re kind of playing it off like, oh, it’s not that big of a deal, or it’s going to be okay, it might keep you from actually packing the clothes and getting in the car

As the old adage goes. Better safe than sorry.

Yeah.

And I just told that to Elliot the other day, and he’s like, what is that? I was like, would you rather be safe or would you rather be sorry that you’re not safe? It’s better to be prepared than not.

There’s probably more we could share with you guys, but this is all we could come up with today based off of our experience. Again, we’ve been really, really grateful for the community that has surrounded us. And there’s a handful of families down here that are a part of our community. So I started a chat with just those families, the wives, to say, Hey, half our church

Almost lives right around the corner from us.

Just checking in on your neighbors, checking in on who’s closest to you, see if they need help too, if you have time to help them. But we know there’s a lot of fires going on right now. Even in California. We had texted our parents that, Hey, this is what’s going on. And they said, oh, us too. And sure enough, it’s a blaze. It’s crazy. Yeah,

I’m going to pray for us real quick. Lord, I love you and I trust you. And whether we lose the house or not, I love you. And I just pray that, Lord, you would be with my family, give us peace, father that we would hold the things of this world lightly. And Lord, I also pray that you would put this fire out, and not just ours, but all the fires that are threatening homes around the country and all the natural disasters. And God, there’s so much sometimes that we recognize we have no control over, and it reminds us of how little we are.

(25:33)
But God, you are big. And so I do ask for more rain and keep the wind down. And Lord, would you protect our neighbors and our friends in our homes. But whether you do or not, we love you anyway because a good God. And we don’t love you based on the things that we have in this world. We love you based on your son, Jesus, that you gave to us freely, his sacrifice on the cross giving us salvation, Lord. So we love you and we thank you, and we ask that protect our family. In Jesus’ name, amen. Thank you. We do ask you to keep praying for us and praying for all of our neighbors and our neighborhood. And also, as I said, most of the Pacific Northwest is on fire. So I’m sure we’re not the only neighborhood that is filling some of these things that we’re feeling and experiencing what we’re feeling. So

I would also like to add, because we really appreciate you guys following along our journey, but I would love prayer for this coming week. I am scheduled to have a C-section. It’s possible that it gets pushed out to the following week, so sometime in the next week or two, we’ll be having a baby. And regardless of whether we’re in our home or somewhere else, I just pray for good health and safety.

Amen. We love you guys. Thank you.