I spent the week as a Chaplain ministering to homeowners who lost their homes in the fire and to others encountered on the way to ministry sites.
The fire in the Pacific Palisades area of Southern California (“The Palisades”) started on 1/7/2025 at 10:30 am. It was fully contained as of 1-31-2025 at 10:48am. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. It burned a total of 23,448 acres and destroyed over 6,000 structures, including single family homes, commercial buildings, a school, and two churches. Samaritan’s Purse still had over 400 open requests from homeowners for assistance as of 4/6/2025 and has already completed over 600 requests. To date as of 4/5/2025, over 11,000 volunteer hours had been recorded in the effort. Needless to say, it was a massive loss for the area, and the total dollar amount of damage is still to be determined but is estimated at somewhere between 28 and 53 billion dollars. 
It is very difficult to obtain an exact total at this particular point in time because of the extensive work needed to assess it. 12 people lost their lives in this inferno, so there are many grieving families in this area. Chaplains from the Billy Graham team have been involved in several of the memorial observances for those families. Chaplains continue to meet with homeowners in support of the Samaritan’s Purse Teams seeking to recover valuables for the fire victims from the charred remains in the footprint of each home. Every item recovered that has any significance to the homeowners produces a small bit of healing on the road to recovery. Homeowners never fully “recover” from this type of a disaster, but they can obtain closure and be helped to move on to the next phase of their lives. It is a long and very difficult road, with many emotional, spiritual and physical challenges. Our goal as Chaplains is to come alongside them in their time of suffering, offering the hope found in Jesus Christ, and allowing them to speak at length concerning their experiences. When they have the chance to “unload” they receive some emotional healing in that process. Chaplains do a whole lot of listening, and a whole lot of praying. It is indeed an incredible privilege granted by the Lord to provide some semblance of comfort to these precious, hurting souls.
So, we generally ministered to two homeowners per day, following the Samaritan’s Purse (SP) volunteers to each homesite. The Chaplains fulfill the Emotional and Spiritual Care side of the “equation”, while the SP Volunteers fulfill the physical need (in this case, valuables recovery from the ashes).
We met homeowners of various faiths. We had Buddhists, New Age, Jewish, Christian and Catholic Homeowners that we came in to contact with. This area is extremely wealthy on the economic and social scale, so we were concerned about the level of openness we would encounter. Surprisingly, people were very receptive to us, and spent time talking with us, and in most cases heard an explanation of the Gospel. My fellow Chaplain Mike and I were allowed to lead one of the homeowners to Faith in Christ by the grace of God…it was a glorious thing that I will explain further on in this write up.
One very wealthy homeowner that was served by SP gave them a very interesting perspective. He explained that because of people’s wealth, many Disaster Assistance Organizations determined that they do not need their help. His comment was “Don’t wealthy individuals need to hear The Gospel of Jesus Christ too?” He also commented regarding what it is like when all of the testimony to your earthly wealth sits before you in the form of an ash heap…..he considered it to potentially be very strategic, in such a way as to point a wealthy individual to see their need for a Savior. He is a strong Believer, and God has blessed he and his family with wealth with which he supports many ministries, including SP.
Let me give you a synopsis of two visits Chaplain Mike and I had with homeowners who had lost everything.
The first one we will call “Victoria”. Victoria actually lived in Malibu, in a beautiful home overlooking the beach and ocean that was a total loss. She related to us that this was a generational home, having passed down to her from two previous generations, and that the house was actually built by her Grandfather back in the 1930’s. She is not a wealthy individual; she is a retired schoolteacher and was able to live in such an affluent area because she had no mortgage on the home (although her property taxes and insurance payments are quite substantial). She would like to rebuild, but the site she has her home on needs engineering and slope work, along with a sewer connection as the property was on a septic system. The City of Malibu has now determined that no one with property on the first face of the mountains adjacent to Highway One can be on septic any longer, so they must connect to the city’s sewer system. Well, in her case, that involves the installation of a pipe system all the way down to the highway, probably at least 500 yards away. That alone would be cost prohibitive for her, since her insurance settlement will not be enough to even rebuild the home, much less do this. Victoria is a Believer in Jesus Christ, but had a very interesting journey in coming to faith. She grew up at the tail end of the “Hippie Era” and embraced many of the beliefs that were floating around at that time. She spent some time in Buddhism and Hinduism, after having been raised in the Lutheran Church. She ended up in a belief system in Santa Monica that is labeled as “The Self Realization Fellowship” which is housed in a large, extremely ornate “temple” between Malibu and Santa Monica. But when we asked her about her relationship with Jesus Christ, she gave an answer that we heard fairly often in this area…. “I believe in Jesus, but I also believe that all the other belief systems that speak of God (or a god) are valid.” While she was weaving a very complicated and convoluted discussion of why she felt this way, we listened patiently and then I asked her a direct question. 
I asked “Victoria, was there ever a specific point of time in your life where you surrendered your heart and your will to God through belief in Jesus Christ, His Death, Burial, and Resurrection? And at that point, did you put your trust in Him?” She said, “Oh yes, I did that back when I was at the Lutheran Church when I was in Junior High School.” (so the seed was firmly planted in her heart at that time) Our conversation then came around to what is really true, and she said that while she was “fellowshipping” at the “Self Realization Fellowship” (“SRF”) she wondered why all of these belief systems claim to be true, yet they are different and often contradictory. While she was in a meditative state at the “SRF” she heard Jesus’ speak to her in her heart, saying “I am the Way, the Truth, The Life, and no one comes to the Father except by me.” (John 14:6) So, she came to “realize” that He is the only one who can provide salvation, and she rededicated her life to Him right there in the midst of worshipping at the “SRF”. We rejoiced with her and of course reaffirmed that she truly surrendered to Jesus….a great testimony of God’s faithfulness to reach out to people. She was still uncertain as to what her future holds concerning her home, but she is at peace with whatever The Lord provides. She plans to continue to attend her son’s church in West L.A. where he got radically saved a couple of years ago.
The next homeowner I wanted to share about is a woman we will call “Aimee”. Aimee also lived in a generational home passed down to her, and she is not of any particular great wealth either. She lived in this home with her Mother for the last several years, taking care of her mother in her declining health. Her Father passed several years ago, and her mother died in 2024. She has also lost her own husband to cancer 2 years ago and has a son who is developmentally and mentally disabled, trying to survive on his own living in West Hollywood. She has had to help him off and on all of his adult life, and he struggles with substance abuse. She has a second son who was radically transformed in 2023 when he gave his heart to Jesus. He has been sharing with her often about his faith and has encouraged her to come to his church with him. She confessed that she had not been there, but she also cannot deny the radical change she has seen in that son. So, in talking about this, I asked her “Do you really see a total transformation in your son?” And she admitted that she did. I then asked her if she would like to know more about what (or really Who) has changed him, and she said she did. I obtained her permission then to go through our “Steps to Peace with God” tract. And in going through this, we came to the end of it, where it has a prayer of Salvation. When I asked her if she understood it all, she said she did. When I asked her if she wanted to pray that prayer, she said she wanted to, and then she did. We rejoiced with our newfound Sister in Christ, and the team also presented her with a brand new Billy Graham Training Center Bible that all of us had signed. She was overjoyed and we celebrated together with great joy! I followed up with her two days later per procedure, and she was still very excited about her newfound faith; she had been reading the devotional booklet we gave her and had begun reading her new Bible in the Gospel of John.
To date when I left this deployment, they had recorded 38 people having come to faith in Jesus Christ, along with several rededications, and some instances where people had received assurance through the Chaplains that they are in a right relationship with Jesus Christ.
The host church was amazing. Their hospitality was “off the charts” turning over fully half of their facility to Samaritan’s Purse. This deployment will continue to at least the first week of May, and if the Lord wills it, I would like to take a small group down to minister for 3 or 4 days. Anybody interested? Let me know…..the likely timeframe for that would be the week of 4/27/25.
God Bless You All, and please keep the folks in Palisades as well as those in the area of the Eaton Fire (Altadena, CA) in your prayers.
