December 16, 2003

CHICAGO - Lutheran Disaster Response, a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, continues to assist survivors of wildfires that struck five counties in Southern California this fall.

Lutheran Disaster Response has issued about $100,000 in grants to provide people "with things they need for basic existence," said the Rev. Gilbert B. Furst, director of Lutheran Disaster Response.

The grants are "helping to minister to the elderly, the poor, the unemployed and the children," Furst said.

"Camp Noah," a week-long day camp for children traumatized by disasters, is being planned, as well as support for pastors "who are doing intense ministry on the front lines," Furst said. Earlier this month Furst spent several days in San Bernardino and San Diego counties, "the two worst of the five counties affected by the wildfires." About "750,000 acres burned" with more than "3,600 houses destroyed," he reported. Twenty people died from the wildfires. "In all my years of disaster response ministries, I have never seen such widespread and total destruction as I saw these past days in southern California," Furst said.

"Everything was gray and black. The ground was burned and baked. Vegetation was gone and bare boulders showed on mountain sides. In [some] communities there is random destruction. The fires were fanned by the Santa Ana winds, so they acted like tornadoes, randomly destroying one house and not another, burning entire blocks and sparing others. The air smelled of charred wood and was full of ash," he said.

Furst said he met with pastors serving Lutheran congregations in southern California that have been affected by the wildfires. Lutheran Disaster Response has set up offices at several church facilities, including Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, Ramona, a town in San Diego County, where three people from the congregation died in the fires.

"Lutheran Disaster Response is working in cooperation with the United Methodists in case management and distribution of emergency supplies," Furst said.

Monetary contributions will provide the resources needed to assist with immediate emergency needs, cleanup provisions, long-term and unmet needs, as well as spiritual and emotional counseling, added Furst. It will "sustain our Lutheran presence, providing ministry to so many [people] who are presently helpless and hopeless, bringing them help and hope in the long haul," he said.

ELCA News Service