The deadliest and most destructive fire in California’s history has finally been contained after firefighters battled the raging flames that swept through Northern California for more than two weeks—taking at least 88 lives, around 14,000 homes and over 150,000 acres.
The Billy Graham Rapid Response Team (RRT) has been deployed alongside Samaritan’s Purse for the past couple of weeks to offer emotional and spiritual care in Butte County, California, including the nearly obliterated town of Paradise.
Since then, more than a dozen chaplains have ministered to survivors at a prayer vigil, alongside law enforcement, and with a family sifting through the remains of their home. They’ve set up tables to offer prayer and a listening ear to evacuees at the Disaster Resource Center in Chico Mall, where hundreds of people have come seeking help.
“It’s tragic when they lose everything . . . when they’re homeless suddenly, and they may still have a house but they don’t have that knowledge. [You hear about] the horror they went through when they escaped surrounded by flames,” Chaplain Coordinator Cathy Nordgaarden said. “It’s a privilege to be with them when they’re in the depths of despair and in their waiting time, and still get to see how God uses love and prayer to bring them up out of that depth.”
She and her husband, Dale, arrived a week after the fire started, driving the Mobile Ministry Center, which is a 10-wheeled vehicle that serves as a base of operations for the RRT and will be a safe haven for Paradise residents when they’re allowed to return to their town.
When asked what Paradise currently looks like, Lead Chaplain of Chico Police Department Bud Chauvin closed his eyes and paused.
“Hm wow,” Chauvin said. “It looked like the movies you see of nuclear destruction.”
Despite the smoky air that looks like intense fog, he decided not to wear a mask while there. “I want people to see my smile and my face, so I don’t wear that thing,” Chauvin said with a raspy voice.
Nordgaarden has found that even those who seem to have nothing left are being a light for others.
“God always—on every deployment—is so consistent to let us be encouraged by believers in Jesus who stand strong and may have a smile on their face even with tears, saying, ‘It’s OK. It’s just stuff,'” said Nordgaarden.
God’s faithful hand of protection in this disaster has stood out to her more than ever before.
“In the midst of engulfing flames, in [the evacuees’] description of darkness like they’ve never seen before, when there was no place to go, God’s divine intervention was there so many times to take them through the fire,” Nordgaarden said.
“Like the Bible says, they escaped the fire without even their robes being scorched,” Nordgaarden continued—referring to the story of three friends who walked through fire unscathed alongside the angel of the Lord.
“[They] saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed and no smell of fire had come upon them.”
—Daniel 3:27
Over the past week, she’s heard time and again how evacuees encountered someone who pointed them in the right direction around a wall of flames. Nordgaarden believes some of these people were angels busy at work, saving people.
“I don’t get it,” Nordgaarden said, commenting how a church, gas station and grocery store are still standing in Paradise. “Sporadic buildings are untouched.”
“God put His arms of protection around these places for the next stages of this city,” Nordgaarden said.
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