Samaritan’s Purse volunteers are helping families devastated by the Eaton and Palisades wildfires.
Jaime Gomez, 59, heard there might be evacuations in his Altadena, California, neighborhood, situated just below Eaton Canyon in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, because of an approaching wildfire that broke out in the early evening of Jan. 7. So, he went outside to have a look.
Our volunteers help homeowners search meticulously through the ashes of their destroyed homes.
“I walked out and all I saw was orange,” he said. “The sky was orange, and the wind was blowing about a hundred miles an hour. Leaves from palm trees were bursting into flames and shooting over houses.”
He rushed back inside of their 1909 Craftsman house and told his wife, Debbie, and their two kids that they had to get out—fast!
“I didn’t even grab clothes,” Debbie said. “We had no power so it was disorienting looking for stuff in the dark.” Jaime snatched up a computer with family photos, their daughter scooped up her plush penguin collection, and their son took a prized basketball. Debbie rounded up their two dogs.
When they ran onto the porch, a nearby hillside was in flames, black smoke choked the air, and a wall of fire was consuming houses just two blocks away. The powerful Santa Ana winds toppled trees and tossed them into streets, blocking escape routes. Debris flew in every direction and smashed into their car as they sped away and drove to a hotel in nearby Burbank.
“The Wind Shifted”
Jaime and Debbie had been through an evacuation a few years prior and everything turned out fine, so they had hope they would be able to return to their house in a few hours or at most a couple of days. And, besides, the wind was blowing away from their house when they left.
It’s amazing sometimes what’s recovered from the ashes.
“Everything we saw from the wind maps indicated that it was blowing the opposite direction, just like last time,” Jaime said. “But somehow, someway, the wind shifted.”
Everyone was fast asleep at the hotel when Jaime woke up around 4 a.m. He picked up his cell phone and saw there was a text from a neighbor who had tried to fight the blaze with a garden hose.
“He told me our whole street is gone,” Jaime said. “It was just chilling. I got cold to the bone. I looked at my family who were all asleep. It was a long three hours before they woke up and I told them. But before I did, I said, ‘Thank you God for this challenge. There’s no going back. It’s only forward from here. Whatever your will is.’”
His family was stunned but thankful to be alive. The home they’d shared for the past seven years was now only a memory. Jaime tried to be strong for his family. “I told them it’s not about the things we had, it’s about what we have, which is each other and the love we have for one another.”
Greeted by an Angel
After they got dressed, they drove back to their street to see if anything was salvageable.
“There were still houses burning when we got there,” Jaime said. “Our house was a total loss. There was nothing left but the chimney—and an angel.”
A Christmas ornament from Debbie’s late mom that Debbie recently packed away in the attic was standing upright in the front doorway when they arrived. It was an encouragement to them, and they saw it as a symbol of God’s love and provision.
Jaime soon connected with Samaritan’s Purse. He was most eager to find two rings that belonged to his mother-in-law: her wedding ring and a blue topaz cocktail ring that was treasured by his wife—family heirlooms she wanted to pass down to their daughter.
Wildfires destroyed thousands of homes and other structures in Altadena and surrounding areas in LA County.
A team of our volunteers carefully dug through the property and found several items, including stones from the wedding ring, part of the family’s beloved nativity set, a ceramic box that once held their daughter’s first tooth, and the topaz stone, which was now clear. The intense heat had burned away its blue color. Even so, Debbie was overjoyed.
“This is the first time I’ve seen my wife smile in two weeks,” Jaime said. “The connection with her mom is really important. This is very meaningful, and we wouldn’t have found these things without the volunteers. What you guys are doing is amazing and awe-inspiring. You’re doing God’s work and are an answer to prayer.”
Despite the tragedy of losing their house, Jaime said his faith remains strong. “My faith is what has meaning to me, not the house, not the possessions. This is a reminder of how impermanent everything is. It’s just you, your family, and your relationship with God and with others that matters.”
A Hard Way to Find Out
A few streets over from Jaime’s property is where Paul and Vicky Egge’s house had been. It was a 1924 Spanish-style home that they moved into in 1994. It had been turned to rubble and ash, another of the nearly 10,000 homes and businesses consumed by the fast-moving Eaton fire.
Fire destroyed Paul and Vicky’s beautiful Spanish-style Altadena home.
Paul and Vicky were visiting relatives in La Quinta, California, on Jan. 7. During dinner, they heard there was a fire in Altadena. Paul drove up that night and retrieved their passports and other important papers before heading over to their daughter’s house in the San Fernando Valley about 25 miles away. The next morning he was on his way back to check on the house when Vicky called him.
“I told him not to go,” Vicky said. “I was watching the news and a reporter was standing on the sidewalk in front of our house and I saw it was on fire. It was a hard way to find out.”
Peace for Each Day
Two weeks after the fire, Paul and Vicky stood in front of the ruins of their home where they’d raised their son and daughter, and where they created so many memories. But instead of asking why this had happened to them, they praised God that they were alive and gave thanks for their strong faith in Christ.
Paul and Vicky Egge cling to their faith, made all the stronger by God’s provision through our volunteers.
“I know Jesus is with us,” Paul said. “I know He cares for us and is guiding us. This is just material stuff. My refuge is in the Lord.”
As Paul and Vicky left their house to drive to the desert in La Quinta that fateful morning, they did something that they normally didn’t do.
“Usually, we take books and other things to read with us when we travel—novels, magazines, those kind of things. Not spiritual books,” Vicky said. “But Paul gave me Mere Christianity for Christmas, so I grabbed it as we went out the door and I also grabbed a Billy Graham devotional called Peace for Each Day that we had recently started reading together. I didn’t know at the time that God was directing me to take those things. I do now. And the devotional has been spot on for this time we’re going through. We know we’re in the Lord’s hands. He’s going to lead us where we should be.”
Vicky received more encouragement as she walked around her property. On the ground, she picked up a page from another Bible devotional that was burnt around the edges and had a small hole in it but was otherwise intact. She wept as she read the prayer at the bottom of the page.
Cherished passages from a devotional book that survived the flames.
Spirit of God breathe through my existence and bring new life to every part of it. Open my eyes to the light of salvation, make me conversant with the truth of faith, guide me in the growth of holiness in Jesus Christ. Amen.
“This isn’t even my book,” she said. “How did it get here? This is going to be the first thing I frame.”
Feeling God’s Presence
Paul, 72, waded into the rubble along with several Samaritan’s Purse volunteers to search for precious keepsakes, and they uncovered some cherished silver dollars. As Vicky looked on, she said she was “incredibly humbled and grateful” that people she doesn’t know would come from all over the country to help not only her and Paul but others in her community who are hurting and share with them the love of Christ.
“Seeing them, we want to give back,” she said. “There are a lot of people who are not as blessed as us. They don’t know Jesus. You know, in normal daily living, we get burdened and busy with things that don’t really matter. But in a time like this, we feel God’s presence even more. We want to be open to God’s Word and where He wants us to go from here.”
Please pray for the thousands of families who have lost everything, and prayerfully consider volunteering to let hurting homeowners know that God loves them and hasn’t forgotten them.
