A firefighter tackles the blaze at the Harts' home in Iringa - owned by the Diocese of Ruaha
(Photo: © CMS)We heard today, Friday, from Andy and Susie Hart, CMS mission partners with Ruaha Diocese in Iringa, Tanzania, that their house was partly burnt down on Thursday 3 November.
The cause of the fire is suspected to be an electrical fault.
Andy and Susie, who lead Neema Crafts, were in Dar es Salaam with daughters Grace and Rosie at the time of the fire, so are safe.
No one was injured during the fire which destroyed the office, sitting room and part of the roof.
This is the latest report from Susie, received on Friday afternoon:
At 10am yesterday as we were setting off towards Dar es Salaam from Moshi in the north of Tanzania (en route from a CMS conference in Nairobi the day before) we received a phone call from Ben and Katy [Ray, fellow CMS mission partners at Neema Crafts] to say that our house was on fire. The office, snug/guest room and living room were fully ablaze, but miraculously the local fire engine had arrived on the scene relatively quickly and, even more miraculously, had come with water in its tanks, so after about an hour they were able to put out the blaze.
We spoke to the police officer at the scene who said they thought it was an electrical fault that had started it, probably in the office. The net result is that we have lost the entire contents of our office, our snug/guest room and some of our living room. The former two rooms have completely lost their roofs and have huge cracks in the walls. The living room ceiling has gone, all the roof trusses and metal roofing sheets will have to be replaced, and all the wiring has been burnt up, making the house uninhabitable. The front door was completely burnt up, leaving only the hinges, and the windows have all broken in the heat. To add to the problem, the rainy season has come early, and we have no roof.
The devastated interior of Andy and Susie Hart's home
(Photo: © CMS)
We have lost everything in our office including our computer, all Andy's veterinary equipment and microscope, all my art materials, paintings and sketchbooks, textile materials and all the tools of my trade that I have built up over a life-time, many books and publications, all our archive material of press cuttings etc for our work here over the last 10 years, family scrap books and other irreplaceable items which had a lot of memories tied up in them, plus all our videos, our television, a bed and many other pieces of furniture.
We may have lost all our family photos and videos of the last 10 years as well, as they were all saved on the computer (now gone) and a portable hard-drive, which was soaked by the firemen. We still hope this may dry out however and would ask you to pray for this, thank you.
We are extremely grateful that the contents of our bedrooms, most of the kitchen and dining area and some of the living room have amazingly survived with only water and smoke damage, and a little singeing in places.
We ourselves have yet to see the damage first hand as we were so far away when it started. We initially decided to head straight for Iringa, but as it is a 16-hour drive from Moshi and our car was rocking violently from side to side we ended up going to Dar, just nine hours away instead. The car is now being fixed. We long to go back to Iringa but Katy and Ben have repeatedly informed us that there is nothing we can do there.
They have been amazing. They've boarded up the house and organised guards - although already today someone tried to steal our water tank. News travels very fast of something like this and a few people will realise there are opportunities to benefit, so we would really appreciate your prayers for security of what is left.
Once the car is fixed we will stay in Dar until Tuesday, much as we long to go 'home', because we are meeting two senior members of the royal family at the British High Commission on Tuesday, and I am one of the people being introduced and then introducing him to everyone else in the group.
Everyone feels that it's best we stay for this since we are representing Neema, and there is nothing we can do at home now, but it is hard to stay when our house back home is in ruins. Please pray for us to have peace, and get safely home as soon as possible on Wednesday (another nine hours' drive).
We feel saddest about the fact that we won't be able to live in our house again before we go, and that we didn't get the chance to say goodbye to it as it was. This is a great loss psychologically for all of us, but we thank God that we were not hurt, nor anyone else, and know that he is in control.
We will stay with Ben and Katy for a few days on our return, and then move into a small cottage in a friend's garden (the Philips family at Kibebe) until we return to the UK. We hope this will be a healing place to be whilst we sort through the ruins of our house and pack up what is left to bring back to the UK.
We heard today from Ben that rebuilding the burnt out rooms, replacing the ceilings, roof and wiring, doors and re-painting will cost around £7–8,000. If anyone would like to help with anything towards this we would greatly appreciate it as it is a diocesan house, there was no fire insurance, and we know they do not have the funds to fix it as they are really struggling financially at the moment.
Thank you for your prayers, we are all very upset at the moment but we will come to terms with it and we know that we have been very blessed not to have lost more.
God bless you,
Susie and Andy
You can donate through CMS to help the Harts: