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By Dorothy Brotherton
A tale of three couples, three fires, three different outcomes – and one God.
Refuge & strength
“GRANDMA, you don’t need to cry. The angels are watching over us.”
Those words from a tiny girl, whose name Shirley Hamm does not know, helped
comfort her during the fear and frenzy of a terrifying experience.
She and her husband, pastor Les Hamm of Peachland Baptist Church, live in a house just behind Gorman Bros. Lumber in
West Kelowna. The senior couple had returned from vacation July 17, unaware
that several blows awaited them.
They learned their son-in-law had experienced a heart attack; and on the heels
of that news, they learned a dear friend had died.
After a morning of tears, Shirley lay down to rest. An asthmatic, she woke to
the smell of smoke and a loud commotion.
“I looked out, and saw our mountain was on fire,” said Shirley. Immediately they heard the evacuation alert. She and Les piled
valuables, supplies and memorabilia into their car and waited for the order to
leave. But somehow their house was missed in the evacuation order.
“Suddenly the fire was right there. It was too late to take the car. We were
hustled out to the road by a man. We don’t even know who he was.”
He wore shorts and a T-shirt, no uniform or insignia. Whoever he was, he grabbed
the couple by their arms and virtually dragged them over an embankment to
Glenrosa Road.
Shirley had snatched her laptop. Les scooped up his Bible, the church telephone
directory, his wife’s pink cup full of ice water (thinking of her asthma) and her purse. “He never carries my purse,” joked Shirley later.
That was all they had, and for a few days they thought they’d lost all the rest of their belongings. The rescuer flagged down a passing car
and shoved the Hamms into it, telling the driver to take them somewhere safe.
He took them to his sister’s home in Seclusion Bay, just south of the fire area near Peachland. A child’s birthday party was going on. “We were invited to the shady backyard where children and dogs were playing,” said Shirley.
Then the reality of their situation hit hard. “Les and I were very shaken by this fast-moving drama. We were sitting there,
shaking and crying.”
That’s when the little girl assured ‘grandma’ that angels were watching over them. “It was like a word from God, saying all was well,” said Shirley.
Shortly, a church member arrived to take them to his home. Just as they left,
police began evacuating the Seclusion Bay area. The next day was Sunday, and a
few people who were not cut off by the fire gathered at the church, and held a
simple prayer meeting.
The Hamms thought their house had gone up in flames. After five days away, they
were able to return to their home – which was intact.
They faced only the task of cleaning up a layer of ashes that had settled on
everything. “God put his very large angels around our home, with very large ‘swords’ and fire hoses,” Shirley later told their congregation.
Les had come out of retirement to take the pastorate at Peachland for two years,
and retired again at the end of July as planned. One member of his congregation
told him he had “gone out in a blaze of glory.”
Shirley said a line of her favourite Bible passage, Psalm 91, had taken on new
meaning: “The Lord is my refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.”
In God’s control
No one knew when a capricious wind might drive the fire through their home. Jim
and Anne Edgson’s house at Killiney Beach was threatened by the Terrace Mountain fire near West
Kelowna.
The Edgsons were as prepared as anyone could be. They had started Emergency
Social Services in the area a few years ago, so they knew how to evacuate, what
to grab and how to help others. As an official with the Regional District of
Central Okanagan, Jim had political connections that might help.
But a higher connection helped most. “Was this a test of my faith? Big time. Are we thankful we know the Lord? Big
time. Has this reinforced our faith in his control? Oh, big time,” said Jim.
He admitted both he and Anne have “nervous personalities,” and said he didn’t think they could have survived this experience without God.
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The couple became Christians in 1988. They had committed everything they owned,
as well as their circumstances, to God. “So when we evacuated, we just were not worried about anything,” said Jim. “We were able to leave it all in the Lord’s hands, where we’d already put it. We took our cat to a kitty hotel, and just left. I honestly
believed the whole thing was in the Lord’s hands, and there was no need to stick around and fret.”
The Edgsons were planning to leave for vacation, and had pre-paid their camping
fees. They struggled with whether leaving would feel like abandoning their
neighbours. In the end, they went, keeping in daily touch and receiving fire
bulletins. “My constituency was greatly impacted. I had to keep an eye on them. But we
realized there was really not a lot we could do,” said Jim.
He admitted they sometimes worried over the problems; then they would recommit
things into God’s hands.
Just as they began to fret one time, Anne noticed three does and two fawns
strolling through their campsite, as if to remind them: “God’s creatures are still here.”
Jim is clerk of North Westside Fellowship, a small congregation with an average
attendance of about 30. For two Sundays, services were cancelled, but on the
third Sunday, 45 people showed up for church.
Jim sensed that some people were now looking more closely at relying on God.
Gift from God
Doug and Mary Tracey built their dream home high on the slopes of West Kelowna’s Glenrosa neighbourhood 24 years ago.
The structure was built large for a reason. “We wanted to be sure our home was used for the Lord and was always open,” said Mary. “We were happy that over the years our house was a gathering place. We had a
really large games room where the youth met regularly, and had all sorts of
functions for both youth and adults. Over the years people knew they could ask
to host a gathering at our place.”
In recent years, Traceys have been active at Powers Creek Community Church,
where many of those gatherings were initiated.
Living at the forest’s edge, they had always been mindful of safety. Especially since the 2003 fires
near Kelowna, Mary kept a list of what to do in case of a fire, valuables in a
cabinet, and an evacuation list.
On July 18, Doug and Mary were near Vernon with their now-grown family. In
shorts, T-shirts and flip-flops, they didn’t know that’s all they would have left. In the midst of their relaxed day, they got the call
from a friend who was trying to pull things from their house before fire hit.
Abruptly his message changed: He had to get out; the house was burning.
“We were the first ones in the line of fire,” explained Mary. It ravaged the Tracey home, skipped their barn and a neighbour’s house, raced toward Gormans mill, jumped Highway 97 and swept down to Okanagan
Lake. Before it was over it destroyed three homes and sent more than 11,000
people fleeing.
When the smoke settled, the devastation became clear. Not even the shell of the
Tracey home remained. Cars and tractors stood like skeletons among the ashes.
Mary remembered they had built the house for the Lord’s use. When it burned she reminded herself: “Everything we have is the Lord’s – and comes from him.” She realized this also meant it was God’s right to take away what he had given. But that thought didn’t come easily when she surveyed the ashes and recalled what was once there.
“Pictures are a sore point. But worse are the kids’ school treasures, the hand written Mother’s/Father’s Day cards, the school scribblers from grandparents and parents, my grandmother’s rocking chair – mementos of absolutely no monetary value, which will never be replaced.”
Mary noted she and Doug had been blessed financially by God. Although their home
is gone, she said: “Hard as it is some days, we truly believe that our home was [both] ours and the
Lord’s.”
Fire photos by Marlene Beagle.
September 2009
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