Saskatoon family rebounding after weekend fire destroys home

This is a story about fire, faith and marshmallows.

Lane and Rebecca Genik and their five kids are still recovering from a fire that destroyed their acreage home outside Saskatoon on Dec. 14. The family had gone into the city for church that morning and got a call from neighbours just before noon telling them that their house was on fire.

Rebecca said they could see the smoke from kilometres away, and "it was a long drive home, watching the flames."

By the time they arrived back at the property, the two-storey dream home they'd moved into on Oct. 29 was collapsing into itself, surrounded by police and fire crews.

CBC reached out the couple two days later, after an online fundraiser described their ordeal. Rebecca suggested meeting "at the bonfire … we don't what else to call it."

Lane and his Dad were surveying the remains, still smoking and hissing, when Rebecca rolled up in the family's white minivan. She jumped out with a set of two-pronged wire roasting sticks, a bag of marshmallows and a box of graham crackers.

She jammed marshmallows onto the sticks and pulled two charred lawn chairs to the edge of the crumpled foundation, giggling through tears.

"It feels like a very unexpected chapter in our story, but you just keep flipping the pages," she said.

"I guess what we've learned is that God is very good and people are very kind. We've been overwhelmed by the kindness and somehow every day has just taken care of itself."

She paused and wrinkled her nose at the acrid smoke drifting up past the marshmallows and sighed softly. Smores were off the menu.

Rebecca said the inside of the van got quiet as they pulled up the driveway that morning and realized the immensity of what was happening. Their kids are two, three, six, eight and 10 years old.

"Some of the kids were having a bit of a hard time in that moment. And I just remember saying, 'Do you know what? We're all together, we're safe and we're a team. We can do this.'"

"And our six-year-old boy, as a boy would, he piped up from the back seat and he said, 'Hey Mom, I remembered to put on underwear today.' So there's that."

Rebecca's parents are travelling outside Canada, so the family was able to move into their home in the city. Since then, it's been a whirlwind of finding clothes, keeping medical and dental appointments, getting kids to school and starting the insurance process.