Tuesday, November 18, 2008
6:15pm

A week ago tomorrow, our student ministries put on a dinner that we had been planning for about a month. Our Sr. High students decided they wanted to put on a full Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless of Santa Barbara. They wanted the whole fixings… real turkeys, stuffing from scratch, potatoes, homemade pies, sparkling cider and tables with table clothes on them. It was a amazing! We served about 60 people in a downtown park and the fellowship with our community was great.

We debriefed afterwards with our students, parents and volunteers. What hit one of my kids was that this was a super big deal for the homeless. We did something to make them feel special and honored and loved. His mom piped in and said, “but I am just wondering what their plan is for the rest of the night. Where are they all going? They don’t have homes. It just makes me sad to think about it.”

Less than 24 hours later, on Thursday, November 13, this same mother and son, along with 9 other families from our church found themselves homeless due to the Montecito Tea Fire coming in and destroying every last earthly possession they owned. Within one short day, they found themselves in a very similar situation to the homeless we had fed just one night before. It didn’t make sense.




As the youth pastor to Jr. High through college aged students and families, I have been on the front lines of this crisis here in Montecito since that horrific Thursday evening. I want to quickly forget the image of seeing the whole mountain on fire behind my own home downtown. I want to forget the nauseous feeling in my stomach after each confirmation of another church family home that was burned. I want to let go of the anxious faces and tears I saw as I drove up to Westmont College’s gym at 6:30am Friday morning through smoldering bushes to pick up college students who were finally allowed to leave. But I can’t. The images, emotions, thoughts, and faces won’t go away. But that is ok. This is part of pastoral care. Not only do we have a God who will take care of those who are hurt and destroyed, but God will take care of the care-takers too.


I have had 15 different people stay in my home since Thursday night. I have realized that I had 5 students in my ministry without the simplicity of clean underwear…and we went out to buy 30 pairs of boxers that day. I realized that one of my families with small children just needed a place that felt normal and wasn’t a hotel room for their two young boys to hang out at. I realized that families only owned one pair of clothing…the same clothing they had worn for the previous 2 days and they needed laundry done in addition to new clothing in their possessions. Some families just needed a safe person to cry to on the phone. In all of these situations, there was a need and as a friend, and now as a pastor, I was able to help solve some simple needs. There isn’t a hand book to doing pastoral care. We had NO idea what our staff would be walking into on Friday morning…with a Sr. Pastor gone at a family funeral across the nation from us. You know, if you trust in him, God leads you. Prayer and courage are some of the first steps into walking into a crisis situation. I didn’t know what to expect, but I asked for the Holy Spirit to guide and lead me through each interaction. I needed courage to pray with students who lost everything. I needed strength and courage to find out who of the 150 Westmont students that regularly attend our church were also affected by this fire…many of who I had not spent time with personally. As of today, I have found that we have an additional 4 college students who lost everything and 4 more families just in my student ministries that are going to be evacuated from their homes for a month or more due to smoke damage.

So, what is my response?
• Availability. Being available for anything and everything. Sometimes you don’t even know why you are there with others, but being available and reminding them of availability is crucial.
• Space. Space for both the families and myself. We specifically assigned certain families right away to certain staff members so the families didn’t feel crowded or overwhelmed. We also wanted to make sure that each family has their own space to breathe, to reflect, to mourn, and to heal. Space for myself is super important now that we are about 5 days past the event. I don’t want to get burned out. I need to take care of myself and give myself time to rest and breathe.
• Care. Creativity with caring is crucial. Each of my assigned families have different needs. This is everything from clothing, laundry, Starbucks runs, buying lunchables for kids lunches, and taking the whole youth group out for dinner together so we could mourn and be together.
• Grace. I am needing to be reminded of receiving God’s great grace for me and these victims and I also need to be giving grace to others around me who are also tired and stressed from dealing with this horrible event.
• Faith, Hope, and Love. I love that I Corinthians 13:13 reminds us that in the end these three remain. I think that I can fully understand this verse after I have walked through this past week with my 1 Jr. High, 3 Sr. High, and 6 college students who have lost everything. Literally, besides their one pair of clothes and maybe their school backpack and family, faith, hope and love is what is reigning on in their lives.

I don’t know why these hard things happen in life, especially to amazing families and students. I don’t know that anyone is ever ready to go through a trial or pastoral ministry like this. But I do know that it is never done alone. It has been so comforting and encouraging knowing that our families, students, and staff has been covered in prayers this week. God has been SO faithful to us through this horrible event. Great is his faithfulness in so many ways.

Another one of my students who lost his home lead a devotional this past year for our youth group. I found it today as it was shared during the Westmont Chapel time and I was sitting with his brother. It comes from Isaiah 40. “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” What better reminder than God’s truth for you and for me in times likes these.

Thank you for your prayers and support. God is good. Yes, all the time.



Each of the pictures posted were significant to me for different reasons... the first shows what most Montecito Homes look like...and having the orange blaze against the black sky is my first memory of the fire. The second picture was in the LATimes and is one of our congregants hugging one of my students. Their families are best friends...and they are neighbors who both lost homes. The third picture is of a monastery that our church would go on staff retreats on up in the hills. It was AMAZING and so beautiful. This is one of the benidictine brothers we have eaten meals with in the former hallway of the enterance.