Short on firewood…not on trees.

This is 48 hours after the fire. The ashes were still warm.

Thanks to everyone that’s been praying for us.  We are moving forward in the process of cutting and gathering wood for the winter.

It will take a lot of man-hours, but we don’t expect to have trouble finding dead trees  to cut down on our 350 acres.

The other point I wanted to make is that the woodshed did not house all of our wood.  Most of the buildings with fireplaces were already stocked and there is a secondary place for bigger furnace wood.  That will, thankfully, get us at least partly through the winter.  I’m told that some were speculating that everyone at Barakel was going to freeze to death and thought it would be worth clarifying that we will not.

It’s still a huge loss, but we are grateful to God that it wasn’t any worse.  We likely won’t have any weekend volunteer groups up to cut wood until March or April since we are working on other deadline projects till Christmas and then are running winter retreats until March 4th.  Call Barakel’s office if you’d like to donate anything towards our efforts (989.848.2279).  We bought a wood-splitter to help us keep up and are looking into a wood-chipper (so we don’t have to burn branches – likely the start of the fire) and a new pump on our firetruck.

Here are a few more pictures from last Monday night:

Mike Baker and Kieth Boeve being amazing

Another fireman on the left

Fairview's firetruck in background, ours in front. Guess which one is 50 years older?

Meanwhile, we are still working on getting the freezer and walk-in cooler finished at the East Side Dining Hall after major renovations.  That will keep us pretty busy until Christmas break.  I’ve been working on tiling both rooms and then helping put the glass-board up on the walls.

I think that’s all for now.  We’d love to hear from you as to how you are doing.  HainesBarakel@gmail.com.

Dan Haines (For Sarah, Asher, and Isaac)

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Firewood

Tonight a fire in our maintenance area destroyed a shed and all the firewood in it. But there is much to praise God for: no one was injured, the fire did not spread to any adjacent buildings or equipment, recent rains kept the surrounding areas from catching fire, and both the staff men and the Fairview Fire Department responded quickly. We have lost 40 cords of firewood (one cord is four feet wide, four feet tall, and eight feet long) which represents many hours of labor, and many dollars of savings off of heating fuel. Tonight we are just grateful for everyone’s safety. (Taken from Barakel’s facebook page)

The Engineers, the teenage boy volunteers, spend much of the summer cutting, hauling, splitting, and stacking the wood that is needed for our furnaces and fireplaces.  We are thankful that the fire is mostly out, but know that it will mean a lot of work replenishing our firewood supply and rebuilding the pavilion that housed it.

The woodshed before

Once the fire's contained, all we can do is watch.

                       I’ll be on fire-sitting duty from 3-6am tonight.  I hope it behaves!

Thanks for your prayers as we press on with the ministry here at Camp Barakel.   -DH

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