Mrs. Gerrard was home with her invalid husband and her daughter who has a studio on the property. We were on fire-alert and I thought I knew about fires as I had I lived in Erica for years where they were a threat many times. We were prepared with our mops, buckets and hoses all at hand. We were very calm.
We could see the smoke in the air and at 2:30pm our neighbours sent us a text message to advise us that we were about to get some embers. So we got ready, still calm. We have a tower here and my daughter could see a long way. We got my husband out of the house, he has a heart condition, and got the dogs inside. We were still very calm, just waiting for spot fires.
A young man, Michael, arrived and helped us fix and connect our hoses and then he just hung around. He lives in Warragul, but didn't feel easy about going home and I couldn't persuade him to go. At about 3:00pm the wind changed and we started getting embers. We had been watching the flames and smoke across at Jindivick and the fire was moving away from us.
Suddenly our neighbour texted:
"Look to the front of your property, you have two seconds to prepare yourselves!"
My daughter organised us we split into two groups and went to our stations. God had sent that young man, Michael to us and he hadn't felt able to leave us. Then another friend arrived. My post was in the front of the house so I was on the perimeter waiting.
Then it came, roaring up the paddock from behind us. A great rolling wall of fire tumbling like a long barrel, with the noise of 1200 bulldozers all at once. The noise was terrific - we were shouting at the top of our voices. Andrew and I were filling buckets to protect the perimeter of the house.
"GOD HELP US! DO SOMETHING! WE LOVE YOU!" My daughter and our friend were at the other side of the house. The fire was raging all around us it came to within a metre of our garden and all the paddocks were on fire. My hair was singed and my scarf wrapped around my face was scorched.
By this time I was on my knees calling out, "God help us! Do something! We love you The fire then turned and went down to the lake.
Our friend called out, "Tell Him we need some rain, and send it now!" So I called out, "Lord, send us rain, and send it now!"
The rain came, it was like when you drop a hose and it snakes along the ground - the rain came spurting down like silver streaks of water through the air. That helped us and we knew then we would be OK.
As the fire passed we came back together it felt like we'd just come back from a battlefield.
MAYBE WE WEREN'T READY TO GO?
The young men said, "We could hear you shouting out to God, above the noise of the roaring fire." Now I'm a softly spoken person -- I don't generally have the strength for volume in my voice. I'm 72, and I've never experienced anything like it before. Never been so close to dying. We praised the Lord and thanked God; maybe we weren't ready to go?
Right around the house is a ring untouched by the fire; the house and rose garden looked as though nothing has happened. The white wooden fence is there, but it is untouched. The fire burnt the foliage and the ferns under the fence; outside the fence all the native trees and the conifers are gone - totally burnt.
Our neighbour had cows in the next paddock and as the fire roared on my daughter said, "I'm going to bring the cows over." She was amazing. She brought them over to our sand area where we had some horses. When the horses saw the cows, they helped her with the roundup.
I said, "Look at that!" The horses had the cows in a ring, just calmly grazing the perimeter around them so that the cows couldn't get out. The animals were so calm —they must have felt the Lord's hand over them.
"LORD, GIVE ME THE STRENGTH OF TWENTY MEN!"
At one stage I was riding the motor bike. I nearly crashed many times, as I couldn't see more than ten feet in front and sure enough - I turned the bike over. I said, "Lord, give me the strength of twenty men!" I put my leg on the upturned bike and over it came. Later, my daughter found blood on the back of my head and on my arm.
I can't say it was frightening it was an experience we were carried through. My faith is strong; I don't start the day unless I ask the Lord if I am doing His will. He protected us as if He put a cone over us and said, "I will protect you". He sent us a guardian angel to protect us. Michael was like an angel and he said later that he didn't know why he stayed. The other young man was sent to us too. My husband is not well we couldn't have done it on our own. We were just calling above the noise, Lord, God help us! Our voices went above the noise of the fire, even though we could hardy breathe. Ive had a cough ever since.
I'M SURE ALL THESE DISASTERS ARE TO BRING US TO GOD
If you believe in God and put your life in His hand, He'll be with you. I'm sure all these disasters are to bring us to God. All these disasters overseas in lands where very few are living with God, are surety a sign of the end of end of times. I feel I live in the world, but I'm not of it. I got on my knees and said "Please, Lord, I want you to save my family. I'm 72, but these young people...
WE JUST PRAISE THE LORD THAI WE WERE ALL PRESERVED
2017 Hollywood Actress Declares Psalm 91 Over Home Saved From Wildfires (not Bunyip VIC)
Amazing testimony of the power of speaking the Word of God over your life! The American actress and singer, Brenda Epperson, best known for her role in the soap opera The Young and The Restless, was thankful her home and family were saved from the deadly wildfires that continues to burn in California. In one of the live videos she posted on her Facebook, she showed the area where God miraculously stopped the fire and saved their property. Brenda said it was only through the power of prayer that God stopped that fire from reaching their home and protecting their terrified horses.
… and the fire stopped. God stopped that fire right at our property line, right at our fence.” Brenda said in CBN interview. She also shared in her Facebook post that she keeps on praying the powerful verse, Psalms 91 over her home.
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in his mighty shadow. I will say of the Lord He is my refuge and my God in whom I trust. Surely, He will save you from the fowler’s snare and the deadly pestilence. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand but it will not come near you.
She was so overwhelmed by God’s faithfulness. At the same time, she encouraged the people to continue praying for the victims. And at the moment, Brenda and her family are going around the affected areas helping people. They are sharing the love of God to those who need it.
“The good that’s going to come out of it is I believe that revival, that God is going to wake us all up.”
2019 Goat miraculously survives on only grass patch in paddock
A GOAT tethered to a fence has miraculously survived the Bunyip bushfire — by standing on the only patch of grass that didn’t burn in a charred paddock. Moorooduc firefighters came across the “luckiest goat” on Sunday when leaving a property at Tonimbuk.
“He’d been surrounded by fire throughout the day, yet the one square metre patch of dirt and grass he was standing on didn’t burn,” volunteer firefighter Aaron Pinxt wrote on Facebook. “Everything around this guy was burnt, yet somehow he survived without a scratch.”
The firefighters checked him over for injuries and filled a drum with fresh water from their truck.
“Hopefully that water will keep him going until his owners are allowed back home,” Mr Pinxt said.
How would you fight this monster?
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FLAMES OF HELL: Narrabri man Mark Barrow took this photo on Timor Rd looking towards Warrumbungle National Park 2013 |