Back in the mid '70's I was the assistant caretaker at Pinecrest Camp, in the Sierra Nevadas near Lake Tahoe.
Sometime in September or early October if 1975 or '76 (after 45 years, that's one detail that has become foggy), my boss planned a trip to the Conference office down in the Bay Area. He and his wife were going, and I was supposed to accompany them. This was not unusual, since we often made trips down there for various reasons. It made for a long day, since it was a good 3 hour drive or more to get there. But it was a change of pace and I always looked forward to it.
Either the night before, or the morning of the day we were to go, the boss called me up and said that he’d changed his mind and that he wanted me to stay in camp. I thought it a bit odd, and he never gave me a reason. Perhaps he didn’t really know why he changed his mind. At any rate, he and his wife headed out and I went to work. There was a big Red Fir tree down by the horse corrals that needed to be cut and split for firewood. After they left, I was the only one in camp.
At noon I knocked off for lunch and walked back to my cabin. I noticed nothing unusual. After lunch, I returned to my work down by the corrals. We usually worked until 5 and called it a day. But for some reason, this particular day I decided to keep working. I think I was near to finishing with that big tree, and didn’t want to leave it until morning. Of course, there was no hurry, so it wouldn’t have mattered, but I kept going. At about 6:00, I finally decided to knock off for the day and go get supper.
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
As I walked toward my cabin I noticed a thin column of smoke coming from the lodge. I thought that was odd, since no one else should have been in camp, and the doors to the lodge were locked. I wondered who was in there and why they would build a fire, since it wasn’t cold. I walked up the steps and looked through the window toward the large fireplace at the other end. No fire. That’s when I knew we had a problem.
I walked over to where I saw the smoke coming from, and saw that it originated from the roof. I unlocked the door and raced upstairs above the kitchen. No fire. I was really puzzled. I went back outside and examined the roof of the kitchen a bit more carefully. Then I saw it. In the valley where the main roof joined the roof of the kitchen, there was a heating cable to prevent the buildup of ice during the heavy snows of winter. The wires had become exposed and had started the cedar shingles smoldering. And it was still the dry season. No rain had fallen for some time.
I raced down to my cabin to call the fire department. But which one should I call? Tahoe was 15 miles away, and the forest service fire department was 12 miles away in Kyburz. I called the forest service and then raced to get the fire hose. We had a number of these scattered around camp. They were big hoses like the ones on fire trucks. Unfortunately the one on the lodge was on the opposite side from where the shingles were smoldering. But it was plenty long enough to reach. I don’t remember the sequence, but at some point I had the presence of mind to unplug the heating cable. I hauled the fire hose as quickly as I could to the smoking section of roof. Just as I rounded the corner of the building and prepared to turn the hose on, the shingles burst into flame. It took only a few seconds to extinguish the flames.
About a half hour later the fire truck arrived. Somehow they had gotten lost. There wasn’t much for them to do anyway, but they examined the spot to make sure the fire was completely out.
As I’m sure you can see, there are a lot of “what ifs” in this story.
What if I had gone with my boss and his wife? We would have lost the lodge for sure and maybe the entire camp, and would likely have had a forest fire on our hands, because it would have taken a while for anyone to even notice the fire. The camp is not visible from the highway.
What if I had quit work at 5:00, as usual? I seriously doubt that the fire had started yet, and I would have noticed nothing until it was too late to save the lodge. And, I probably would have had to walk out, since my car was parked beyond the lodge, and I don’t know if I could have driven past the flames. Now, was this all just coincidence, or was God actively working to save the church from great financial loss?
Another question. Was it because I was there, that God intervened? I don’t believe it would have mattered who was there. God did not want the camp to burn, and he used the materials at hand; in this case my boss and me. So, if he can use feeble—far from perfect—people like myself for something like that He can certainly use any of us to bless others.
After all, He used a donkey once to communicate with Balaam!
Walter (Wally) grew up in Calif., graduated from PUC, and eventually migrated to Maine. “My wife and I own a natural foods store in a small left-leaning university town. I've achieved "geezerhood," as I will reach threescore and ten at some point during the year.”