The Lockdown, the Fire and the Gospel

Mixed Blessing During Lockdown

I hope you are all well. For us the lockdown has been a mixed blessing. It has meant that we have been able to spend a lot more time at home with the other family we live with. It has also meant that we have been doing a lot more work on the projects around here. We have done all sorts of things.

We picked loads of apples and bottled them, picked walnuts, felled some trees for firewood, built some more of the outhouse and have done a lot of cleaning.

The bad news is that we had a fire at our cottage the other day!

Don’t worry. We are all safe!

“Is there fire…?”

What happened was  that it had been raining all day and one of the young men here was getting bored at being inside all day. The cottage we stayed in also holds his workshop, so he was unable to do any work inside while we were there. We all went over to see the other family around 3pm and the young man immediately went to his workshop to do something.

I had no idea what he was doing until an hour or so later when I went to grab something I’d left behind. I noticed he was forging something out of metal like a blacksmith would. He had heated the fireplace super-hot to melt the metal. It was very stuffy inside, so I opened a window, grabbed what I needed and left him to it.

A little while later we were having dinner next door when one of the young girls at the table spoke up:

“Is there fire coming out of the cottage?”

Then, straight after that she yelled, “FIRE!”

We all quickly jumped to our feet and ran around like mad chickens. I had no idea what I was going to do but someone thrusted a fire extinguisher into my hands. I started using that and at the same time someone hooked up a fire fighting hose they just happened to have. Another person rang 111 while Irene stayed in the main house with the children.

Through the fire extinguishers around the house and the fire fighting hose, we managed to get the fire out within a few minutes. The fire engine arrived after about 5 minutes but by then the fire was out. If we have had to wait for them the whole house would have been in flames.

The fire started because the fireplace was so hot that  the basket of firewood next to the fireplace caught fire. We had thought that we should move it away, but it had never been an issue because the fire had never been hot enough.

We lost some nappies, pants for Zoe, Irene’s Bible and a few other things. We haven’t been able to replace anything due to the lockdown, so it’s been a bit difficult. Fortunately, the other family have allowed us to stay in their house and been incredibly generous in helping wherever they can. Irene has been loving it because she hasn’t had to cook for the last week 😊. Also, we now have closer access to toilets and showers.

The Gospel in Lockdown

Another good thing about the lockdown is that there is a young French man staying on the land. He arrived in NZ in February and had plans to travel for six months before going back to France. When the lockdown was announced he had to find somewhere to stay. He found this place through a WWOOF website. He has been here since the start of the lockdown and will stay here until the end.

He is not a believer and he is not going anywhere in a hurry, so it seems like God has arranged all this. I have taken the opportunity to share the gospel with him and my full testimony. He has had some very good questions and I can tell he is thinking about Christianity.

The other day Irene was talking about someone being born again and asked the French man if we knew what that meant.

His response was:

“Yes, I know. Andrew explain me.”

His English is not the best, but I was pleased to hear him say that. It means that he knows exactly what he needs to do to follow Jesus. That is encouraging for me to know that I shared the faith with him effectively.

Online Discipleship

I have also continued my discipleship lessons on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The only difference now is that they are now online. I have also been working on the next set of lessons which will cover topics such as:

• Dying to Self
• Becoming Untouchable
• Unity
• Handling Money
• Identity

I have had a lot of positive feedback about these lessons and I strongly believe God is using these to help people to mature in their faith. I will continue to develop lessons as I feel God leading.

Tiny House Progress

Finally, for those of you interested in the progress of our tiny house, it is standing still at the moment as we are unable to source the materials needed during this lockdown. Here is a picture of what I’ve done so far.