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By Mary JacobsOct. 12, 2017 | UMNS

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Another appearance of Senikau Momoka’s acreage afterwards wildfires swept through California on Oct. 9. Momoka, who is a affiliate of Aboriginal United Methodist Abbey of Santa Rosa, took apartment there. Photo by Kelly Vaughn, address of Aboriginal United Methodist Church.

To appearance a ample adaptation of the NASA accessory photo of California from Oct. 9, bang here.

First United Methodist Abbey of Santa Rosa, California, was consistently a abbey that helped others in need. Afterwards wildfires tore through Santa Rosa on Oct. 9, abounding in the abbey were abandoned and relying on the advice of others.

Despite the accident to homes of members, the abbey still opened its doors as a shelter.

“We got a beating on the aperture at 2 a.m., and had to abandon immediately,” said the Rev. Blake Busick, chief pastor of the church. Blaze charcoal rained bottomward on Busick and his ancestors as they larboard their home. Their home was destroyed, as were at atomic six homes of added abbey families.

The wildfires still angry in arctic California accept austere through about 170,000 acres, killing at atomic 29, antibacterial 3,500 homes and added structures, and banishment the aborticide of added than 20,000. Hundreds abide missing.

Most fires are still uncontained. The better fires — in Arctic California's Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties — larboard abaft broiled rubble, clouds of smoke and little else.

“These fires booty everything,” said Linda Caldwell, appointment administrator for Mission Collaboration for the California-Nevada Conference. In areas affected, she added, “There’s annihilation larboard to rebuild.” Witnesses accept compared the confusion to the after-effects of a nuclear blast.

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First United Methodist Abbey of Santa Rosa, California, opened as a apartment alike admitting seven families in the church, including the Rev. Blake Busick, chief pastor, absent their own homes to baleful wildfires, Oct. 9. Photo by Kelly Vaughn, address of Aboriginal United Methodist Church.

Church associates in Santa Rosa went to bed on Oct. 8 blind that a blaze was afire abreast Calistoga. High apprehension advance the blaze so bound that evacuees were afflicted to abscond aural account of the aboriginal warnings.

The beating on the aperture came at 4 a.m. for Lindsey Kerr, accessory pastor at the Santa Rosa church. By the time she accustomed at the abbey — which thankfully was alfresco of the blaze breadth — associates were already there advancing bacon, eggs and coffee. Abbey associates angry the abbey into a makeshift shelter; some 98 bodies backward there on Oct. 9.

After an advertisement on a bounded radio base that the abbey was accessible for those defective shelter, donations began accession spontaneously — some from abbey members, abounding from strangers.

“Great bodies accept been assuming up randomly,” Kerr said. She dubbed one adolescent man who showed up with a bag of toothbrushes from Costco “the besom fairy,” and addition citizen who took clothes that bare abrasion became “the angel of laundry.”

The abbey additionally accustomed evacuees to accompany pets.

“It’s like Noah’s Ark here,” Kerr added. “We accept a assembly — birds, dogs, bodies and, I think, a cadger or two.”

An aborticide assurance acquaint by Novato United Methodist Abbey in Novato, California, shows the way for those gluttonous apartment afterwards baleful wildfires bankrupt out beyond the state, Oct. 9. The abbey hosted about 60 bodies during the day on Monday and 50 overnight. Photo address of Novato United Methodist Church.

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Other arctic California churches alfresco of the blaze breadth geared up bound to accommodate apartment and aid for evacuees.

When associates of Novato United Methodist Abbey abstruse that abounding evacuees — not alive breadth abroad to go — had angry up at a bounded arcade mall, they devised a way to extend an invitation.

“We brought a big assurance over to the capital to let bodies apperceive we were open,” said the Rev. Youngmi Jung, Novato’s advance pastor. The abbey hosted about 60 bodies during the day on Monday and 50 overnight.

Petaluma United Methodist Abbey began accession donations — bottles of water, food, clothes, toys and linens — and served as a staging operation to accumulation adjacent shelters.

“A lot of association we’ve never met afore accept aloof angry up with donations,” said Richard Hillery, a lay affiliate and armchair of the trustees. “It’s heartwarming.”

Other churches in the breadth abide in a “watch-and-wait” mode. So far, associates of Saint Helena Aboriginal United Methodist Church, amid in the affection of Napa County, are safe, but activity has appear to a standstill, according to the Rev. Burke Owens, the church’s chief pastor.

“The schools and best of the businesses actuality are closed,” he said. “We’ve been told to be accessible at any time to evacuate.” The smoke is close — “it smells like you’re continuing appropriate aloft a campfire,” Owens said. He said the smoke poses a bloom blackmail for accouchement and those with respiratory issues. Cellphone and internet account is erratic, and some are after power.

At the appointment level, leaders calm donations for bloom kits, accommodating added churches on standby to apartment if needed, and kept tabs on bodies aural the connection. “We accept a cardinal of retired clergy who alive in the areas afflicted by the fires, and we are in the action of blockage on them,” Caldwell said.

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At Aboriginal United Methodist Abbey Santa Rosa, abbey associates face a continued rebuilding process, said Busick, who responded to questions from United Methodist Account Account while arcade in a adjacent Target store.

“We’re affairs basal things, like toiletries,” he said. “We had to leave so bound that cipher took anything.”

Busick acclaimed that the congregation, which averages about 350 in account attendance, had aloof acclaimed the adieu of a mission aggregation headed to Middletown, California, on Oct. 8.

The aggregation planned to advice clean homes in the deathwatch of the 2015 bonfire there. That aforementioned morning, the congregation’s scripture was the access from Exodus account God’s accouterment of blessing and blanch to the Israelites.

“It’s a little eerie,” he said. “It says that what we charge today will be provided. We had no abstraction how abundant it would apply.”

Jacobs is a freelance biographer active in Plano, Texas.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org. To get added United Methodist news, subscribe to the chargeless Daily or Account Digests.

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