United Methodists see loss, offer relief as wildfires rage

Key Points:

• United Methodists in southern California are opening their doors and doing what they can to help people displaced by the Los Angeles wildfires.
• At the same time, many United Methodists are grieving the loss of their homes and at least two churches’ buildings.
• At this point, people outside the affected areas are encouraged to pray and give money to what will be a very long recovery process.

As wind-blown wildfires ravage Los Angeles County, United Methodists are doing what they can to offer shelter and address immediate needs.

They are also starting to count their own losses — which include the destruction of church members’ homes and the buildings of at least two United Methodist churches.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, and I’ve been through two earthquakes and other fires,” said the Rev. Garth Gilliam, superintendent of the California-Pacific Conference’s North District. “I’ve never seen the vast scope of blocks and blocks of homes just gone.”

Since Jan. 7, firefighters in southern California have been battling to control a series of major fires, fueled by dry conditions and fanned by ferocious Santa Ana winds. They include the Palisades firestorm close to the California coast, the Eaton fire north of Pasadena, the Hurst fire in the San Fernando Valley and the Sunset fire in Hollywood Hills.

The flames already have consumed thousands of structures across more than 50 square miles. Roughly 400,000 California customers have experienced power outages, and more than 180,000 people have needed to evacuate. At least 10 people have died.

New conflagrations are still igniting. Meanwhile, the California-Pacific Conference — which encompasses United Methodist churches and ministries in the region — is already feeling the impact of the blaze.  

On Jan. 8, flames engulfed the buildings of both Altadena United Methodist Church, north of Pasadena, and Community United Methodist Church of Pacific Palisades. At least five other United Methodist churches also were under evacuation orders. 

The Rev. John Shaver of Community United Methodist and the Rev. Paige Eaves, the assistant to the bishop, have both lost their homes, the conference reported in its Jan. 9 update. Conference leaders expect many more church members also have lost their homes.

The conference also said that Church of the Foothills in Duarte and other church buildings have sustained damage from the strong winds. Los Angeles meteorologists have measured wind gusts up to 75 miles per hour this week. That’s the strength of a Category 1 hurricane.

Bishop Dottie Escobedo-Frank, who leads the conference, has been offering daily updates and sharing her prayers.

“I am praying for you, bringing you before God, our Creator, saying, ‘I know who you are. … The United Methodists are people who do the work during times like this and care for each other,’” Escobedo-Frank said in a Jan. 8 video message.

“So don’t give up. Go ahead and grieve. Feel all the feels. And then continue to do the work of sharing meals, opening homes and being Christ’s avenue of love in this day.”

For now, the best United Methodists outside of the affected region can do to help is to pray for all dealing with the ongoing disaster, including first responders, and to donate financially.

“Money is the best thing right now because I don’t know what else I’m going to need,” said the Rev. Denyse Barnes, the conference’s director of justice and compassion. At the time she spoke with United Methodist News, she was working to get shipments of drinking water for the affected communities.

The California-Pacific Conference has set up a portal where people can give to its Los Angeles Fire Recovery Fund. People also can donate money through the United Methodist Committee on Relief to support the church’s response to the fires and other U.S. disasters.

UMCOR is already coordinating with the conference for the long-term recovery ahead. But the denomination’s relief arm is not a first-responder agency. The fires will need to be extinguished and the immediate response completed before United Methodist volunteers can help.

Gilliam, the district superintendent, surveyed the damage in hard-hit Altadena on behalf of the conference. He urged people not to self-deploy.

Recovery will be a long process. He estimates most United Methodists who live in Altadena, gutted by the Eaton Fire, have lost their homes.

As he slowly made his way through the community Jan. 8, he said that some power lines were still burning. More personally devastating was when he reached the still smoking husk of what had been Altadena United Methodist, home to a multiethnic congregation with a vibrant youth group. Gilliam had just served as guest preacher at the church a few weeks ago for its pastor appreciation Sunday.

“It’s almost indescribable, what’s happened to that community and this church,” he said. “This was a church full of young families and youth. That’s what breaks my heart.”

Still, he said the pastor, the Rev. J. Andre Wilson, and his wife, Heather — who have been busy comforting church members and neighbors — reminded him that while the building is gone, the true church lives on. Gilliam has heard much the same sentiment from the church’s members.

“They still have this incredible spirit of faith and trust in God, even through this devastation,” Gilliam said. “They still believe God can take something tragic and bring something good out of it.”

Wilson, the church’s pastor, posted on the church’s Facebook page that the congregation has reason to both grieve and rejoice.

“God is still on the throne,” he wrote. “We are still alive! Praise be to God! God is WITH us and closer to us than ever before.”

A number of United Methodist churches in the Los Angeles area opened their doors to those displaced by the fires to offer a place to recharge spiritually and, in the cases of their phones, literally.

Among those offering hospitality is Pasadena’s First United Methodist Church, which is within walking distance of the city’s convention center that has been serving as an emergency shelter for evacuees. Ashley Slade, the church’s communications director, said the church has mainly served as a resource center for people to get support and N95 masks because the air quality is so terrible. The church also has been hosting a dozen or so church members and others overnight.

Hollywood United Methodist Church also had been serving a similar role on both its campuses until the development of the Sunset fire forced the church’s Hollywood campus to evacuate.

The Rev. Hannah Adair Bonner, the church’s senior pastor, said she and other church staff are doing what they can to keep in touch even though many are dealing with a lack of cell service.

“There are people within the conference who have lost everything, and the city will never be the same again,” she said.

She also asked people to keep in mind that among the first responders are around 800 state prison inmates, who are specially trained to respond to a variety of disasters. They are embedded alongside nearly 2,000 California firefighters.

“We are all just waiting to find out how we can love one another well in this moment, once we get past the initial crisis stage,” she said. “I think everybody is just wanting to know how they can support one another well in the weeks and months to come.”

Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umnews.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.