When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans twenty years ago, one of my church members came with dire news: people weren’t getting the help they needed. The instinct to give was felt throughout our community in North Dallas, but there was little capacity to receive anything more than funding.
In about three days, we organized a clothing drive in our community, complete with two 18-wheelers to deliver the goods overnight to Covington, LA. Without a stable cell network, we also provided formula and infant supplies to a women’s hospital on the way.
A few years later, at my church in North Austin, we responded when refugees from the Bastrop fire appeared in our community. Same thing: rapid help through people with an instinct to do something good for the strangers at their door.
For the past two days, our community in Northern Los Angeles has been burning. The Eaton fire has claimed countless homes and businesses. While LA has a reputation of celebrities and wealth, many of these people are your average families - some of them living in the homes they grew up in, raising their children in their childhood neighborhoods. They teach my kids, attend our scout meetings, and sing in our church choir. All of them have lost a sense of safety that a home provides.
I am grateful that my earliest memory of a Christian church was a willingness to help my family when we were in need. I cannot imagine the pain and fear of losing your home, but I know enough of loss and displacement that I cannot help but act. And specifically, act as a church - with generosity that is firmly fixed in the present, with little regard for the what-ifs of risk management.
Right now, our ZIP code is safe - but our neighbors are not. And so those in safety are called to respond. I am working with our local churches to organize a response, and with all of the members of our community to hold a benefit where we show up for one another.
As I’ve shared with other community leaders, churches are accustomed to receiving and distributing donations - with transparency and generosity. Not everyone has experienced church in that way, but I can’t imagine a better way for a church to introduce itself the community. Imagine, helping without concern about political leanings or theological convictions or any other category that otherwise divides us. Just knowing that there are people who are suffering, and the God we worship is one who draws close to those who suffer, who experiences their loss, who aligns with the brokenhearted.
Right now, I imagine that our event will be held on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, when we all realize that none of us are healed until all of us are healed. That we stand hand in hand with one another because we are human, not because we share skin color or moral philosophy. If you are in the Los Angeles area, I hope you find ways to help those in need; and if you are in need, please reach out and know you are not alone.