To those of you who are praying - THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!! This morning was quite and adventure,but for you to understand it all, I need to lay some groundwork. A few days ago, we had a rainstorm - the second one that strangely occurred in the middle of dry season. As a result all of the area mice are seeking a less waterlogged area in which to live. I do need to clarify something though. You know those bumper stickers that say “My kid can beat up your honor student”? Well, the same can be said of our mice. If mice from the U.S. saw one of our mice, they would probably feel that they were in one of those movies where people run screaming through the streets as something large either climbs a skyscraper or smashes buildings with its feet. These monsters don’t do the normal thing and eat your crackers or chew a hole in the cereal box. They have a strong liking for electrical cords. In fact, they chewed completely through one. So, we set really big traps with peanut butter and hoped for the best. Well, they got the best – they really enjoyed the peanut butter and we did not catch a single one – but they also ate another electrical cord. So last night, we set traps AND put out rat poison. During the night the rats kept Dad and Clare up for the third night in a row. Dad got up and tried to scare them away from the electric cords. Unfortunately, one of them apparently ran behind the kerosene fridge. A kerosene fridge runs by a lamp type wick located on top of a tank full of kerosene. This one happened to made of extremely heavy plastic. The mouse happened to bump the glass protecting the flame and as a result the flame was able to move down into the tank of kerosene. This caused the fire to slowly spread inside of the component, slowly melting the plastic – so that an hour or so later, Dad smelled smoke, came out to check on it and found the fridge in flames. Here is where your prayers come in – had the fire gone on even 15 minutes longer (or less) I would probably not be here writing on this blog. The kerosene was very close to leaking out of the tank and if it had, the entire place would have gone up in flames. PRAISE GOD!!! A student who had wounded his hand and could not sleep for the pain, saw the flames and came over to help. Again, praise the Lord! For those of you who are praying- THANK YOU!!

So, we had planned on leaving a 7 am this morning to head to Freetown, but instead we had to clean up a mess, empty the fridge, and dispose of a dead mouse (which we did catch). We now have no refrigeration at all and will have to try to find something else in Freetown. Praise GOD for his protection. If it had happened the next night while we were gone, the house would have been completely destroyed.