My In Laws House Caught On Fire Today, Please Pray

Today was to be the happy return of my wife and children and her family, but it has become something else. We had our first rain in two months and it was some of the worst lightning I have seen in a long time. As I was driving to work this morning at 7. It was storming a monsoon. Lightning was lighting up the inside of my truck, I thought I was going to be shocked. I got to work and about 8:30. I got a call from Shannon and she was crying and that just made my knees buckle. All I could think was that they had a wreck and something had happened to the kids. She said my moms house is on fire, panic mode hit me. I ran out of the store and hopped in my truck and headed to her house. When I got in the neighborhood I didn't see any smoke so I thought it 's just a false alarm. WRONG!

I turned onto their street and there were three fire trucks and an ambulance there. I ran up to the chief and he said lightning had struck the back of the house and caught the attic on fire. I just didn't know what to think or do. It's pouring down rain I'm soaked, but I didn't care. Shannon was on the phone trying to get details out of me. I had none! The picture above is where the lightning struck. it's at least 10 ft long in length and they said the bolt hit the bottom floor. I was just in utter disarray! They were asking me questions and I had no memory. I think they asked me my last name and I had to think for a minute.

But I am thankful to all the neighbors for being there for me because I was just in awe. My preacher was there with me the whole time and held the umbrella over me and was just a great help. I just want to thank Jeff Morgan, Noel Whitlock, Scott Finley, Paul Morgan and anybody else that was there from college church. You guys are God's finest examples of goodness. I guess there was a reason I didn't go to Florida. While this was happening they were all on their way home from Destin.

This is the room below the attic, they had to take out the whole ceiling to get to the fire and contain it. This room and the attic above is a total loss. Water damage was not to the extent I thought it would be, considering the flames were shooting out the roof. I just asked that you all pray my in-laws Bob & Martha Tindell they will need it, they should be home within the next hour. It's going to be rough.
Words cannot express how appreciative I am of the bravery of the Searcy fire dept. They did their job and did it well. I went down the line and shook all their hands and told them how thankful I was for there great effort. It's a duty not just a job. I thought the whole time as they were going in there with their masks and tanks on and the burnt insulation covering them. I thought of 911. How brave they all are and we should be grateful to there service. May God bless all firefighters in the world and how under appreciated they are.