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Family from our church loses home in explosion and fire


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From our homeschool email list...

Please pray for the McCloskey family. Friday evening while they were having a picnic in their pasture an explosion occured at their house which caused the house to completely burn down!

All the family is safe - Praise God! Please pray for peace, wisdom and especially comfort for the family.


This is a large, homeschooling family that we first met years ago at the free Karate classes offered by another church. I'm not sure exactly how many kids they have, but it seemed there were quite a few. They are now in our Sunday School class, and are really nice people.
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Yes, Praise the Lord they weren't in the house. Brother, do you have any information on how to help them out financially, a contact thru' their church maybe? Are they getting any help from their church, the Red Cross, or their community?

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Yes, they had insurance. Our church organized everything. One person was in charge of the overall donations, another was in charge of clothes, another food. They're staying with another family that has 8 kids, but 4 of them have moved out and started their own family, so they now have a large house (they built while their older kids were still home and could help) with room for guests.

The family that lost their home told me they'll probably get a mobile home to live in until their own home is rebuilt. I emailed plans I had for a triple decker bunk bed, that we had built for our boys. They were pleased with that, because it will help out with sleeping arrangements until their home is finally rebuilt. The church really whipped in there fast an took care of their needs.

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While I believe we have everything covered within the church, they are taking donation. I normally wouldn't pass on this information, but some have already asked about donations. I received the following via email...

The Elders have decided to establish a temporary emergency fund to receive donations for the benefit of the McCloskey family. This money will be used to meet the extraordinary one time financial losses they incurred with the total loss of their home and belongings due to a fire that occurred on Friday September 28th. This money will be used for food, shelter and clothing.

Checks can be made to Tulsa Bible Church with ?McCloskey fund? noted in the memo line. You can drop your check off at TBC during the week, if you like. Please put the check in an envelope with attention to Doris Clatfelter. You may also put your checks in the offering bag on Sunday. Donations to this fund will be considered tax deductible.

I didn't want to ignore the offers of help if any still feel led to contribute. The address would be...

attn: Doris Clatfelter
Bookkeeper / Secretary
Tulsa Bible Church
5838 S. Sheridan Road
Tulsa, OK 74145

Obviously the burden of support would be on the immediate church family (TBC), but sometimes God leads people to help out in the larger family of Christ. I know the family appreciates all the prayers, especially Mrs. McCloskey. Women very often see their home as an extention of themselves, so in a very real since she has lost a big chunk of her own self-identity. Being a homeschooling, stay-at-home mom, she still has her husband and children, but it would be unavoidable for her not to have done the natural thing and put a lot of herself into her home. I would imagine it would have impacted her much the same as if a guy, who had a comfortable, well-established and respected career, were fired and had to seek a completely new career path. Suddenly who they are has to be redefined and rebuilt, and that is added trauma to what's already happened.

On a side note, this is a good lesson in the importance of fire safes and digital storage devices. We have as much of our own mementos tucked away in a small fire safe, just in case. We were able to store a lot of stuff digitally on CDs, which I'm debating about converting to something that will store more in less space.
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