Among the heartbreaking and dramatic stories emerging from the horrific Australian wildfires is one from the coastal town of Mallacoota. As bed & breakfast owner David Jeffrey described to Eternity News: “We could hear the roar” of the firewall, he said. “It was like a monster bearing down on us … like someone had opened the door of a furnace.”

Jeffrey and others retreated into the water. Reckoning they had about 30 seconds to live, he and some other Christians began to pray. “Lord, we need [wind] from the East.” Gradually, he claims, the wind shifted. The more fervently he prayed, the stronger the east wind grew. The wall of flame was pushed back.

Many of Jeffrey’s neighbors were not Christians. But what they witnessed with their own eyes convinced them. “They tell me ‘God saved us,’” Jeffrey says.