Our church has just lived through the worst natural disaster our area of California ever has experienced, and the damage is not fully comprehended yet.
On Jan. 7, a fire broke out in the Eaton Canyon area, which is a few miles north of our church building at First Baptist Church of Pasadena, Calif. The fire began during a windstorm, creating the necessary conditions for it to become a monster.
John Jay Alvaro
As of Sunday, Jan. 12, the physical wound created by the Eaton Fire seems to have ended its spread in the Altadena and Pasadena communities where we live and serve. As I have learned in my eight years in Southern California, when it is this dry from drought and the Santa Ana winds arrive, everyone’s teeth are set on edge.
Those Santa Ana winds are predicted to return this week, so this disaster continues to unfold even as some folks, including my own family, start picking up the pieces and putting together what we can.
Our home in Pasadena was spared, and we are living back in our house for now. The smoke makes life difficult to manage, causing headaches and burning eyes, breathing issues and a general sense of suffocation. Not to mention the long-term health risks of this much sustained exposure to smoke and burned debris. But we put on our masks and push through to begin the long work of healing.
Pastor, father, husband, friend
For those of you reading this outside the area affected, let me share my personal experience of these fires as a pastor, father, husband and friend.
In a crisis, all these identities converge in a moment of mutual consideration. As the Eaton Fire broke out at 6:15 p.m. last Tuesday night, my own family was scattered in three locations around the city. I was with my daughter at home receiving texts from my wife, who was a mile to the south telling us a fire had started in Pasadena. The winds had been scary all day long, the kind of gusting that brings down big trees and flips 18-wheelers on the interstate. Our teeth were firmly on edge.
My son had considered driving up Chantry Flats, but thankfully the access road was closed. I lost communication with him just as I realized a fire was growing between our home and where he was. Thankfully, he arrived home just as we began getting texts from people in our community checking in on one another. I received a text showing the view from a friend’s backyard, and you could see the flames roaring in the canyon only blocks from him.
“I told the kids to go pack a bag of essentials and prepare to flee.”
I did the math in my head about the force of the winds, the drought conditions, the direction and distance of the fire, and the number of trees and wood-constructed houses between us and the fire. I took the kids up to the roof, forgetting that the winds could have pushed us off the edge if we were not careful. But we had to see for ourselves just what was coming. We could see the fire from our roof, and my stomach dropped. I told the kids to go pack a bag of essentials and prepare to flee.
I got a text from my wife, “I’m scared, babe.” She said she needed to clean her office a little before she left. I texted, “Leave it, and get home safe!” Next text, “Now.”
We put every device on a charger and started pulling out the items you take when fleeing without guarantee of return. Passports, cash, family treasures. When my wife got home, we scrambled to load up all our vehicles with essentials and drive south to the church to regroup.
Time compressed as we packed up our home. The jewelry box my brother made me. The childhood keepsakes in the garage. Enough clothes to last a few days and any sentimental articles. Kids having to choose what never to see again and what would fit in the little space we had.
Time moved fast as we got word that other church members had fled their homes with nowhere to go. I started calling staff members who live farther south to go open the church, telling them people are coming, and we need an intake system ready in 30 minutes.
I stopped every few minutes to encourage the kids that they were doing great and to remember to breathe and to stay focused, that we could cry and panic once we were safe. Finally, all three cars were loaded to the hilt and we were ready to go.
One last task, only considered because a natural disaster always makes you vulnerable to be preyed upon. With the house unoccupied, at some point looters might arrive. So my son scribbled in sharpie on enough paper to cover the doorways around the house, “WE TOOK ALL OUR JEWELRY AND MONEY WITH US.”
We opened every cabinet and drawer we could before loading ourselves into the car. Sirens were going off in every direction, hurricane gusts kicking against the shingles and branches. Time felt like it was closing in. But the way a body inhabits time is a choice. So first the four of us, dog in arm, slowed down and took in the moment. If this might be our last time in this house, we needed to honor the time by staying fully present.
“Huddled and crying, we said a blessing over the house, over the homes closer to the flames and over the wind and fire and parched ground.”
Our home has been our haven for so long, the longest of any home that ever held our family safe. So we gathered in the room between all of our bedrooms, where we gathered each morning before school to drink coffee and wish each other a good day. Huddled and crying, we said a blessing over the house, over the homes closer to the flames and over the wind and fire and parched ground. Then we fled.
Trees were down everywhere, roads already were being closed and traffic was backing up as everyone north of us to the base of the mountains was fleeing too. I called my son and told him to take the back and I would take the front, with my wife and daughter in the vehicle between us. We chose the path to church with as many right turns as we could find. “Do not get separated,” I told them. I called my son and off we sped. I told him when trees needed to be dodged, when traffic meant we needed to take a side street, what route was our first and second choice. He relayed where the girls were and confirmed every time we all made it safely through an intersection, him honking to ensure no one ran a light or jumped a green too soon.
A mother and child transport their possessions into the church where they sought safe harbor,.
Safe at church
We arrived safely at the church, unloaded our go bags into my office, then I ran to the other side of the building to meet staff and start organizing the process to convert the church into a shelter while the fires continued to spread. We already had sent out the mass communication over text and email to our church community:
7:14 p.m., Jan. 7
“Dear Church Family — please let us know if you are in need of support or a place to evacuate as we weather these wind storms and fires together. If we need, the church can be a shelter.”
7:50 p.m., Jan. 7
“If you need support during these wind storm and fires, feel free to reach out to: Sally (cell) Kathy (cell) Marcie (cell).”
By the time the night was over, we had about 40 people and 25 pets scattered throughout the church building. We set up a war room in a Sunday school classroom with a whiteboard full of information about who was where, shifts for watching the door, supply runners, communication flow, critical contact info.
A Pasadena home reduced to ash,
I slept maybe two hours that first night, phone on high inches from my ear. I missed the text that one of our deacon families with pets and small children had to evacuate at 4 a.m. and were waiting at the door. I woke to find another pastor already had settled them in the Parlor.
“We were in hell, barely able to imagine what the neighborhoods to the north were suffering.”
The next day, the winds picked up again and the fires kept jumping streets that never had seen a wildfire before. How were they so far south!? How was the wind still pushing?! I looked for a gap in the work to go back home one last time, to take whatever would fit in the cars. One last chance to save what little we could carry. The sky was brown and orange. The sun barely visible through the smoke. We were in hell, barely able to imagine what the neighborhoods to the north were suffering.
We made it back to church safely and began to assess the long-term viability of housing people for an unknown amount of time. Could the fire jump the freeway?! Surely not. But the smoke was unrelenting, and the winds continued. The makeshift church shelter was stable, intake was in rotations and rooms were being reassigned, people who could be re-homed were moved offsite. Everyone waited and wondered if their home was spared. Calls started coming in. Four homes were gone by Wednesday afternoon — that we knew of. The families escaped safely, but return wasn’t an option.
Time starts to blur from there. A family who fled to San Diego to escape the smoke lent us their home a few blocks from the church to shower and regroup. A bike was stolen from our car. We got a flat tire from road debris. I hugged everyone I saw. By Friday, it felt safe to return home, which had been spared by the fires that halted a few blocks north. We drove to see if the kids’ schools were still there. Both were spared, but both were surrounded by destruction. As stories poured in, we learned the wind not only pushed a wall of fire south, but also sent huge burning embers overhead and landed on roofs and trash cans and shrubs so that random houses would catch fire blocks away from the core of the blaze.
Pastor John Jay Alvaro uses a white board in the “war room” at First Baptist Church of Pasadena, Calif., to map responses to the raging wldfires,.
The morning after
By the time it was done, the majority of Altadena was gone. North Pasadena was a patchwork of destruction. My daughter’s best friend lives in a neighborhood where every home was leveled except hers and a couple of others. The news was showing clips of a church member’s home in flames located just off the canyon where the fire started.
A couple embraces during morning worship last Sunday at First Baptist Pasadena.
By Friday, it became clear we would be able to safely host Sunday worship in our building. We had helped everyone who sheltered find actual housing, so we set to the work of clean up. Then we did what we do best, we gathered for worship.
Like every Sunday, we started our service with open mic gratitudes, where we shared story after story of provision and kindness in the midst of the terror. One of our church matriarchs who lost her home shared from the deep wisdom of someone whose faith is proved by fire. In a church like ours, the people are the gift God is giving to the world, and as leaders we simply structured a liturgy to turn one another toward each other.
We ended with a benediction with those whose homes were destroyed at the center. We crowded around them, and hands on shoulders and arms raised in defiant heartbreaking joy. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his smile upon you, and give you peace, now and all your days. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
We will gather again on Sunday for gratitudes and prayer, singing and blessings.
Worshipers at First Baptist Pasadena, Calif., gather around those who lost homes to lay hands on them and pray for them in Sunday worship.
Postscript:
We were (are) shell shocked. The National Guard is still blocking return above New York Drive and other dangerous areas. As of Monday, Jan. 13, many people are still in hotels and friends’ homes. Their homes might be standing, but they cannot get back and assess the damage yet.
We have an emergency board meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 14, to restructure our staff, budget and long-range planning in light of the destruction. We will need more resources, more staff support. We know every task will take longer and every person will be working from reduced capacity.
People have asked how to support our church in this time. The best help is a donation to our ministry budget, which will allow us to continue the core practices of faith that will sustain us for the long road ahead. Follow our work at fbcpasadena.com.
John Jay Alvaro serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Pasadena, Calif., a historic California church affiliated with the American Baptist Churches in the USA.
Hear an audio journal recorded by John Jay Alvaro on Monday about an unusual encounter he had at the church.
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