PC(USA) delegation hears the stories of survivors of the Southern California wildfires
The visitors also view the devastation brought on by the Eaton fire in Altadena
ALTADENA, California — As part of an accompaniment visit to Southern California, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and others are hearing from people whose homes were destroyed in January by the Eaton fire in Altadena and the Palisades fire in Pacific Palisades.
Among the listening sessions Thursday was a gathering at Pasadena Church, where Pastor Kerwin Manning invited eight families who lost everything in the Eaton Fire to share their accounts. In all, 19 church families lost their homes, and many more are awaiting word that it’s safe to return to their remediated home.
“We were all shocked and unprepared” because “fires have never come down out of the mountains,” Manning said. “Many people have had to flee with the clothes on their backs and came back to nothing.”
“Someone said when one door closes, another opens — but there’s hell in the hallways,” Manning said.
After the fire, the church quickly became a major distribution site for the city, he said. “We are in that space of knowing there’s trouble and knowing we will overcome because Christ has overcome.”
The Rev. Jihyun Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and Executive Director of the Interim Unified Agency, brought greetings to the two dozen or so people who gathered. “We are here to be witnesses to the experiences you continue to undergo,” she said, “and also hold hope for the future that will come to you as well.”
Church members shared stories of terror and loss from the fire, as well as their sure conviction that God remains with them as they continue to recover.
“We made it to the car, but nobody was in the neighborhood. It was like a ghost town,” one woman said. “I thought I had waited too long and I should have listened to my family.” She lost the home the family had purchased in 1971, the home where they raised their children.
“I praised the Lord the teenagers didn’t see it because it happened at 3:30 in the morning,” another woman said. The next day, “they knew before I did the house was gone.”
“This church has been such a blessing,” she said. She’s also helping out at a neighborhood school. “To smile and laugh with them is different,” she said. “They’re grateful and they’re giving hugs.”
A retired Pasadena educator whose house burned down is also caring for her 101-year-old father, whose house survived the fire. This former teacher spent part of Thursday in a school helping with its Read Across America events and is part of the Tournament of Roses, which puts on the annual Rose Parade. But the church “is where I go to get rejuvenated,” she said.
Another woman said her son alerted her twice that the fire was coming. By the second time, “this boy was starting to irritate me,” she said. She assured him the flames wouldn’t come down to their location and went back to bed. At about 3 a.m., “he said, with bass in his voice, ‘Mom, get up.’ I saw nothing but smoke.” She took only two outfits “because I thought I was coming home.”
The next day from a hotel room she was fortunate to find, she spoke by telephone to Manning. She had just one question: We’re still doing our food program [Food for Faith] today, right, pastor?
“That’s the heart of the people around this circle,” Manning said. “They’re thinking about serving others even as they’ve lost everything. In the midst of the stories you heard is a hurting community” who nevertheless “finds a need and fills it. We have worked a long time [in the community] to be one church of many different congregations.”
“Crisis cultivates community,” he said, “and we have found a common ground serving others. You don’t have to have lost your home to feel that.”
One man shared his family’s story of losing their house and later returning to try to locate his wife’s wedding ring amidst the ashes. “We were looking around, and all we had was a kitchen strainer,” he said. “By the grace of God we were able to find her ring. That was the high point afterward.”
On the garage door, one of the few remnants of the house, he wrote, “Lord, be my strength. Father, light the way.”
“We are righting this ship,” his wife said, “and God’s going to steer it.”
The church used the inspiration of Isaiah 61:3 and Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Beauty Will Rise” to design a T-shirt it gives to anyone who lost a home and sells to others who want to support the community. As Manning put it, “We want this community to know that out of these ashes, beauty will rise.”
“Our emphasis is on getting people settled. Our message is that Altadena is not for sale,” Manning said. He carries with him a “stash” of donated gift cards. “It’s powerful to do something for people right there,” he said. “People see a crisis and they act, but they don’t ask.”
“There is still a need here,” he said, “for families to be restored. We are committed to making sure the community is restored and better, because beauty will rise.”
Altadena Congregations Together Serving
Earlier on Thursday, the interfaith organization Altadena Congregations Serving Together shared some of what they’re seeing and experiencing during a gathering at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Pasadena.
The Rev. Wendy Tajima, executive presbyter of the Presbytery of San Gabriel, was another to lose her home in the Eaton fire. First Presbyterian Church in Altadena “was somehow spared,” she said, but “a lot of toxins” are keeping the congregation away from the sanctuary for another month or so.
“I never in a million years thought I’d see my church (Altadena Community Church) burn down,” one woman said. The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center was also destroyed. Thirty families lost their homes and another 40 were displaced.
“We are concerned particularly for our older members who are underinsured or who had no insurance at all,” said the Rev. Dr. Tyrone Skinner, pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Altadena. “I am concerned about the left out and the looked over, especially our migrants. I have seen fires in this community, but nothing like this.”
Elsa Siefert, 92, a member of the ACTS steering community, was evacuated from her home, which is still standing but not yet habitable. “I feel helpless to do anything except talk and write,” she said. “I know we won’t be exactly what we were, but we will be something similar: neighbors who care for each other.”
A member of Christ the Shepherd Lutheran Church said that while the church remains intact, seven members, including herself, lost their homes. “My greatest need is information. I go to all the meetings I can,” she said. “The money [for recovery] is there now, but with what’s going on in politics, will we have the money in three years? I’m getting older and my time is limited.”
“We need people who are going to work and not talk,” she said. “We have to forget about denominations and work together as one.”
“We need to be gracious to one another for the decisions we make,” said the Rev. Connie Larson DeVaughn, lead pastor of Altadena Baptist Church. Regarding people of color, “I am concerned about generational wealth going up in smoke.”
A sobering drive
Wendy Gist, the mission advocate for hunger, poverty and peacemaking in both San Fernando and San Gabriel presbyteries and the immigrant accompaniment organizer in San Gabriel Presbytery, guided the visitors through the neighborhoods ravaged by the Eaton Fire, which killed at least 17 people and destroyed more than 9,000 buildings. The fire was fully contained on Jan. 31 after burning for 24 days over more than 14,000 acres.
“The emotional piece is pretty deep,” Gist said. “Mostly the people who have not lost their homes are caring for those who have. Even for the caretakers, the emotional piece is pretty tough.”
“I love the generosity,” she said. “Material goods and financial donations have come in to a specific church, presbytery or PDA. It’s a wonderful outpouring.”
Gist pointed out several locations where only chimneys remained, while a neighboring house was unaffected by the fire.
“Imagine not having much warning time and trying to get out. These aren’t very wide streets,” Gist said. “People went to bed that night thinking the fire was to the east. West Altadena didn’t get much warning.”
Knox Presbyterian Church’s Immigration Team
On a busy first day for the PDA solidarity journey, PDA Mission Specialist for Migration Accompaniment Ministries Omar Salinas Chacón visited with members of the Immigration Team from Knox Presbyterian Church in Pasadena. Over dinner at Monte Vista Grove Homes, a senior community that primarily serves Presbyterian pastors, missionaries, and church staff, the four church members including Gist told Chacón about their work in accompanying several people migrating in the United States and advocacy from the federal to local level.
The group told Chacón the Immigration Team formed shortly after President Donald Trump’s first inauguration in 2017. Since the beginning of his second term in January, retired former Executive Presbyter of San Gabriel Presbytery, the Rev. Bryce Little, said, “There is more of a feeling this time we have to do something.”
Retired mission worker Merilie Robertson, who served in Pakistan, Iran, and Nicaragua, said, “We’re trying to figure out what a church can do.”
A Central American migrant the group has been working with was nearing the end of the asylum process when her case was abruptly thrown out recently. Chacón said that has been a common occurrence recently. He talked to the group about steps they can take in education and advocacy, including education and being prepared in the event of Immigration and Customs Enforcement action at the church or toward local migrants.
Chacón asked about the impact of the wildfire on the local migrant community, and while the group was not aware of specific people impacted, retired pastor the Rev. Karen Burns noted that the fires had a major impact on communities where migrants had built generational wealth that was wiped out by the fire.
Rich Copley, PC(USA) multimedia producer, contributed to this report.
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