‘You can replace things, but lives and souls — you can’t replace those,’ Shawn Davis says.
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
CANADIAN, Texas — The sun came up on the Sunday morning after the fire.
“More importantly, the Son arose,” said Shawn Davis, who snapped a photograph of the orange rays lighting up the scorched prairie. “Hope prevails!”
The 55-year-old oil field worker and fill-in preacher for Churches of Christ lost his home last week as the largest wildfire in state history blazed through the Texas Panhandle.
Despite his family’s lack of insurance to replace the losses, Davis said he trusts in God.
“This probably sounds like a stock answer, but all I could think about were the lives that could have been lost,” he told The Christian Chronicle. “You can replace things, but lives and souls — you can’t replace those.”
The Smokehouse Creek Fire, still only 15 percent contained, has burned over 1 million acres in Texas and Oklahoma, the Texas A&M Forest Service reports.
The fire has destroyed up to 500 structures, killed thousands of head of cattle and caused two deaths, according to state officials.
Related: Christians look to God for strength after Texas’ largest wildfire
“We need to praise God that hundreds of lives weren’t lost,” Davis said.
He, his wife, Cindy, and their two grandchildren — Camden, 14; and Chloe, 10 — escaped the fire last Tuesday afternoon. They brought along eight dogs and a horse pulled in a trailer behind Shawn’s Ford pickup.
“I had been out working and got back from the outskirts of town,” Davis said. “My wife was trying to get stuff ready, and we had the grandkids and all of that. And we didn’t get out as quickly as we probably should have.”
This story appears in the online edition of The Christian Chronicle.
Photo by Shawn Davis
Faith. Family. Fastballs. 