Many of you may have heard by now that my family and I have been impacted, but not (fortunately) touched, by the fires in Ventura County. By way of giving you a feel for the past 24 hours, let me relate to you the past day's news in a series of bullet points:
* At 12:30AM last night, I was lying in my bed in Burlingame (where I just preached my first sermon as that church's pastor), dozing off to sleep.
* At 12:32AM, I was alerted by text that the school that my girls attend in the Foothills of Ventura (Ventura Missionary School), would be closed due to fear of, "smoke inhalation" health issues.
* At 12:35AM, I texted my wife Star who told me the power was out and that the heat was off and the Ventura was going up in smoke and that Ewan (our 16 month old) was crying uproariously.
* At 7:30AM, I learned that Star's place of work, Vista Del Mar Hospital had burned to the ground, that several of our best friend's houses had burned to the ground, that 30,000 people were on mandatory evacuation, our children's school, Ventura Missionary School might burn to the ground. Our worship leader's house might have burned down.
* At 8:30 AM, I jumped in the car, and instinctively drove straight home. I asked my very capable church Executive Director (Joan Cleary) and my very capable personal assistant (Heather) to cancel all my meetings, and help me through it. They pointed me in the right direction and got me on the road. "Get home," they said, "we will take care of things at the church."
* At 11:00AM, 3.5 hours of driving time later, (it is a six to seven hour drive from SF to Ventura), I started to become aware that I was a part of a cavalcade of fire trucks that were driving southward from Northern California to help out with the fires in Ventura.
And this is really the major content of my blogpost, except for the very good news that my family is safe and they are sound here on the cusp of the fires (as I write this tonight at 9:58PM on Tuesday).
I have never felt prouder to be a Californian or to be an American. As I drove down, I kid you not, I was flanked by no less than 50 fire trucks driving down from Northern California to meet the inferno head on. [Enclosed above is one of the pictures that I took while driving of one small flotilla of fire trucks]. These young men and women and trucks came from cities like Los Gatos, Palo Alto, San Jose, San Francisco, San Mateo, Concord, Fresno, Merced, Madera, Red Bluff, Corning, Redding, and Sacramento. Truck upon truck were driving south to fight the fires. The closer we got, the more the impending doom of fires seemed ominous and foreboding. But they drove headward and onward into the inferno. As I passed each truck, I gave the young men (20 year olds) a thumbs up and a thank you. They smiled back. It brings a tear to my eye to think about it.
So Proud!
* At 12:00PM, as I was heading into Santa Barbara, I saw thick plooms of smoke billowing through the entire city and area. This was no small fire.
* At 3:00PM, I rolled into Ventura to find, and I am not writing hyperbolically, a total WAR ZONE of decimated houses, neighborhoods and hillsides. Where apartment complexes and middle income homes and grand estates had once stood, now ashen heaps and withered hopes and dreams lay in smoldering piles of soot and sunder.
* At 3:30PM, when I rolled into my driveway, I cannot tell you the joy and elation that I felt when I picked up my 16 month old son, and held my two daughters and wife in joy and relief that we were all safe and together. And we are safe here tonight. Though we are leaving on Thursday, moving away sooner than planned, to evade the potential for personal harm.
But not all have been so fortunate. My dear friends Bashar and Gada lost their house. And their parents lost their house. And others. Too many to count! And the numbers are rising. Ojai is in trouble.
This is not over.
Not by a longshot. The big winds are forecast to pick up on Thursday at a speed of 70 miles an hour.
But for tonight, I am
So Proud!
And Grateful!
All For Now,
GB
No comments:
Post a Comment