Arizona Disaster Relief wraps up service after California fires

For almost two-and-a-half months, Arizona Southern Baptist Disaster Relief served in California following the devastating fires there. The first volunteers arrived Jan. 20, and the last team came home March 30.

In all, 59 individuals from Arizona served with chaplaincy, feeding, recovery and shower/laundry work. Volunteers took Arizona’s two recovery units and two shower/laundry units with them to California.

By the numbers, here is what the 59 Arizona Disaster Relief volunteers accomplished:

• 2,413 volunteer meals
• 2,502 shelter meals
• 1,013 showers
• 820 loads of laundry
• 4 gospel presentations
• 277 chaplain contacts
• 113 personal property jobs
• 7,233 work hours

Eldon Curry led a team into Pacific Palisades for personal property recovery, looking for items in the ashes of burned homes. They were not expecting utter devastation.
“You just wanted to cry,” Curry said. “There was nothing there. It was total destruction.”

Curry and the 11 Disaster Relief volunteers started working quickly. They needed to contact each homeowner before they could enter the property. Many residents wanted to recover items precious to them.

One request challenged the team. A Hindu woman asked them to find the statue of a Hindu god she kept in the center of her home. After prayer and a heart-felt conversation, the team entered the property and dug through the debris and ash to retrieve the statue. They prayed with the woman before and after the search and she accepted a Bible signed by each team member.

“We knew how important that statue was to her, and it gave us a chance to introduce her to our God,” Curry said.

“It was a great blessing to be able to serve and minister to hurting people in need. Everyone was grateful for our help. Many prayed with us and accepted Bibles.”

On seeing his property, one resident told an Arizona Disaster Relief chaplain that “it felt like a funeral.” The team prayed with him and tried to console him.

Bill Whaley just completed his fifth callout in nine months. Before that, he spent two years as a Disaster Relief prayer warrior. He served as lead cook on the feeding team for the first two weeks in the California response. He returned for two additional weeks for personal property recovery.

“I learned a hard lesson on the last callout,” he said. “We had a single chaplain for the first week but the second week, as the acting ‘blue hat’ [team leader], I was responsible for most of the chaplain duties. I realized I needed chaplain training.

“The need for chaplains was great. Many homeowners were so distraught, and sometimes they just wanted someone to listen, or in some cases receive a hug. One of the hardest parts for me was the widows. They wanted so badly for us to find their husbands’ ashes. Sometimes we couldn’t because of the severity of the fire. It was heartbreaking.”

The situation in Pasadena was somewhat different. There, the team saw smaller homes with little hope of recovery, but the people were very appreciative. They prayed with and for the team. All accepted the Bibles, and a few said it would be the first book in their library when they rebuild.

“Every fire, flood, tornado, disaster, or call I’ve been on has been different,” Whaley said. “We want to be the hands and feet of Jesus wherever we are.”

Don Vickers, Arizona Disaster Relief director, praised the volunteers who served.

“I am so proud of our Arizona Disaster Relief volunteers,” he said. “They have served faithfully and selflessly to meet the needs of those affected by the fires and to support the work that is taking place in California.

“We have been blessed to engage new DR volunteers who were just trained earlier in the year, and they have quickly joined in to continue to enhance the great reputation that we have as Arizona Disaster Relief.”

Irene A. Harkleroad, a freelance writer living in Carefree, is a member of Black Mountain Baptist Church, Cave Creek.

Elizabeth Young also contributed to this story.