Up from the Ashes

We’re sitting with our small group on a Monday night discussing ideas for being “missional,” but no one plan seems to fit. Unable to come to any conclusions, we pray for guidance and return to our homes.

The night’s discussion echoes a larger conversation that the leaders of our congregation, First Evangelical Free Church of Colorado Springs, have been having for a while. How do we make a tangible difference in our community?

A church of about 400 on the far west side of town, many of our church’s attenders drive in from Divide, Cascade, Manitou Springs, and other mountain towns along Colorado’s Front Range. More live near the church in the neighborhoods nestled into the ridge bordering the western edge of the city. Our home is a few miles east. It wasn’t proximity or fancy programs that drew us to the church; it was people with a gift for loving their neighbors.

Two months after that unresolved small group meeting, on the afternoon of Saturday, June 23, a relatively small fire begins in Waldo Canyon, near Manitou Springs. It is one of many that have plagued the state during this unusually hot and dry summer.

For the first few days, the atmosphere in nearby Colorado Springs is serious yet calm. Authorities evacuate 11,000 people including one woman who is staying with our small group leaders. But those not in affected areas go about their normal business. We all keep an eye on the growing plume of smoke just beyond the ridge.

On Tuesday afternoon, the wind changes. The fire that had previously been confined to the forest land beyond Colorado Springs suddenly crests the ridge on the edge of town. Driven by 65 mile per hour winds, the fire storm swoops in like a tsunami onto the inhabitants of the Mountain Shadows neighborhood and surrounding areas. Witnesses later compare it to what they imagine hell might look like. Throwing what possessions they can into vehicles, residents flee their homes, sometimes just yards ahead of the flames. Police declare a mandatory evacuation and do their best to channel panicky evacuees through gridlocked streets.

By Wednesday morning, the Waldo Canyon fire is declared the most destructive in Colorado history: 346 homes have burned to the ground; two people are dead; 32,000 people are in shelters and homes throughout the area. As I drive to work past the still smoldering neighborhoods, I weep. Though we live two miles from the evacuation line, my own bags are in the trunk, ready just in case.

At church five days later, Rob Caminiti, our pastor, puts aside his sermon and manages a tired smile. This is not an ordinary Sunday, he says. Fifty seven families from the church have been evacuated. Three homes have been destroyed; one badly damaged. He asks us to stand and share our experience of the fire.

Pastor Rob recounts his own intense fear on Tuesday night, as he evacuated with his wife and three daughters. Still shaky, he admits that even after the family was safe in a hotel far away, every time he closed his eyes, the image of a wall of fire racing toward them continued to blaze in his mind’s eye.

The elderly woman next to me leans over and whispers, “I won’t live long enough to erase the image of that fire from my memory.”

Two families who lost everything are in the service. One woman, a missionary whose home burned to the ground just days after they returned from an overseas trip, testifies that the fire has given her the chance to witness to evacuees and aid workers of the hope she has in Christ. She says she had been scheduled to speak at a retreat on Colossians 3:1-4 in a few months. “Set your heart on things above, not on earthly things.” She grins. “Now I have a lot more material for my talk.”

Another couple looks numb. Along with everything else, they lost her wedding dress and their 50th anniversary mementos. Later, the church serves lunch to the evacuees in the fellowship hall. The wife stands in front of me in the serving line, quietly spooning cheese onto a plate of nachos. I have no words.

A week passes and the fire is nearly 100 percent contained. Most of the evacuees, including Pastor Rob and his family, are back at home. The morning’s sermon is entitled “Beauty from Ashes.” He exhorts us from Luke 4:14-21 to approach this event as Jesus would, with compassionate, tangible, long-term concern for the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of those affected.

“We have now an unprecedented opportunity to make the Gospel known in Colorado Springs,” Pastor Rob says. “To waste this opportunity would be a greater tragedythan the fire itself. What if God has allowed this tragedy to soften hardened hearts?”

After the service, we hold a congregational meeting to discuss how to proceed. A retired firefighter from our small group leads. Samaritan’s Purse has asked churches to go with home owners to sift through the ashes for anything of value. First Free will be holding three community crisis workshops. Over the next weeks and months, there will be other opportunities to come alongside our hurting neighbors through babysitting, providing meals, a clothing drive, and offering financial and insurance coaching.

After the Sunday service, my husband and I drive past the blackened neighborhood of Mountain Shadows. The plume of smoke has dissipated. Those who can are moving back home. The media is moving on. Yet the job of the Church in Colorado Springs is just beginning. It’s time for us to come together and sift through the ashes of this tragedy. God is indeed doing something, and he’ll use us, if we’re willing to get our hands dirty.

Sheri Lazarus is a cross-cultural trainer with Engineering Ministries International and Mission Training International. She and her husband have lived in Colorado Springs for one year.