The Shop Fire....A Week Later

Silver Birch Ranch continues to be positioned well in this inconvenience (I refuse to use the word tragedy here in that it is obviously more of an opportunity than a tragedy.) to show who God is and how He works. I remain convinced that Silver Birch Ranch will be better off in the years to come as we are forced to rethink and rebuild. 

Already we are seeing a temporary facility being erected that will eventually allow us to deal with the storage issues we have struggled with for several years. We have seen, to date, $121,000.00 donated to help us with our immediate costs and our staff, volunteers and campers have not missed a beat. 

In fact, while the fire burnt several men, who were at camp on a retreat from a Church in Chicago, came to Christ. As the flames burnt, God was using this facility to expand His family. 

In a very practical sense we have seen God work. For example. 

We lost a well used and needed tractor in the fire that night. This was a 4 wheel drive Case tractor with a modified front end loader on it that was often used at the barn. It had just had its clutch replaced and was sitting overnight in the building that burnt. 

The day after the fire I was speaking at a church and a local farmer asked me some questions about the lost tractor. He began looking for a replacement for us. The next day, he told me he found a tractor, the same tractor we lost only two sizes bigger, with a cab (which we did not have on the old one) and less than 700 hours on it. (That is practically new!) The only problem was that this tractor sat for 8 years in a shed and he had no idea what mechanical shape it was in. 

The owner, a widow, was willing to give us the tractor for an unbelievable price.

When we went down to get it, with a few adjustments, we were able to start it right up, load it on the trailer and bing it home. In less than a week, a tractor we depended on for daily chores is back in commission. In fact, this might have been even faster than waiting for our mechanics to finish the repairs on the old one….

I am convinced that God knew that we would be needing this tractor at this time and had that farmer buy the exact model we needed. I am convinced that God then had his widow leave it parked to preserve it for His work.

There is much more work and provision needed and we are positioned well to see and report. I pray we do not miss such a golden opportunity to demonstrate faith and to report God’s faithfulness. 

In the end, we will all realize that the successes in this setback will not happen because of our faith but because of God’s faithfulness. It will be our job to point out the obvious. 

Let’s enjoy the process of being used by God.