Fire through the night

I didn't sleep too much last night. Helicopters flew over head all night. I got an email from one of my families at 5:30am saying their house is gone. Now it is 9am and we have word that about 7 church families lost their homes. 5 of them have students in my ministry. I got a call at 6:30am from one of my Westmont students (Steph Dotson) asking for me to come and pick her and some friends up from campus. They were letting cars up to get them from the gym. SO, I got myself through fire lines up to Westmont.

MONTECITO COVENANT CHURCH - I drove through the church campus and all looked fine. I didn't see any buildings burned, or even trees damaged. I checked the parsanage and it also looked fine.

WESTMONT - I drove onto campus through the lower enterance. Armington and VK dorms both looked ok. I got to the gym and picked up 5 kids and brought them back to my house. The ravines and spots of land were all charred from what we could see. We are told that it is upper campus that got the bigger hit.

Faculty neighborhood - I couldn't get to the neighborhood at this point. Blocked off. I have talked to families that are all trying to get to their homes over there. They are walking on foot in order to get through since cars can't get by.

Pray for comfort for these familes....that they can let God bring comfort during this time. One family specifically is struggling with letting go of all their possessions and just wanted prayer for the reminder that these are just things. We still have each other.

At this point, we don't know where we will be meeting for church services on Sunday. We may be at church...but the air quality is TERRIBLE and there is great chance we won't have electricity.

Thanks for praying for Montecito, for Montecito Covenant Church, for Westmont, for our families that lost homes, for the administration that is making HUGE decisions (many of them go to our church), etc.

The best part. Driving past the fire station next to church & westmont. The fire advisory said, "High to Extreme". haha.

Shalom. Lord, have mercy.