Mission Yearbook: 'We’re still in the wilderness'

The Rev. Matt Hardin and the Rev. Dr. Grace Park, who serve Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church, the only PC(USA) church destroyed by the January wildfires, recently led members of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance solidarity visit during a sacred time to mourn their beautiful church, a complete loss in the Palisades fire.

Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church was the only PC(USA) church
lost in the Jan. 7 fires. (Photo by Rich Copley)

“We’re still in the wilderness,” Hardin said, standing alongside the charred remains. “Every time I come here, I realize how long it’s going to take.”

“It’s like visiting a gravesite,” Park said. “It’s painful and healing at the same time.”

Fifty-five church families lost their homes in the blaze. Church leaders are undecided as of now whether to rebuild after adding a  new roof and carpeting and, most recently, custom sliding doors just before the fire. The fire also claimed the church’s preschool, which ministered to 65 children. The preschool “was a big part of who we are,” Hardin said. It’s been shuttered.

Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church pastor the Rev. Matthew Hardin talks
to the Rev. Dr. Laurie Kraus, the Rev. Edwin González-Castillo and the Rev.
Dr. Kathy Riley at the site of the church building. (Photo by Rich Copley)

The church currently conducts worship services each Sunday afternoon at Culver City Presbyterian Church. At the recent visit, PDA’s director, the Rev. Edwin González-Castillo, offered a sermon during worship based on Luke 4:1–13. The setting — Jesus and the devil in the wilderness — is “all the more relevant to those of us who have experienced the struggles of a disaster — to be able to find similarities between what the wilderness represents and the experience of living through, or surviving, a traumatic event,” González-Castillo said.

The Rev. Edwin González-Castillo preaches during worship services held by
Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church meeting at Culver City Presbyterian
Church. (Photo by Rich Copley)

He recounted the biblical accounts of others who experienced the wilderness, including Abraham, Moses and Elijah. González-Castillo called the wilderness “a place of isolation, vulnerability and struggle, but it can be a place to find spiritual depth, renewal and transformation.”

While driving visitors to the church site, Hardin pointed out other nearby losses. A popular site, Will Rogers State Park, had been overseen by a church member. The church’s former manse, adjacent to the church building, is still standing but is being remediated to make it once again habitable. It had been rented out, and the church is experiencing that revenue loss as well as no longer receiving tuition from the preschool. But Presbyterians and others have been generous with their gifts, Hardin pointed out.

Park showed visitors around what remains of the church, which isn’t much. Pots of geraniums survived the blaze, but the pipe organ did not, along with the decades of music with which the choir has blessed worship. Among the surviving church finery is a charred cross that Park and others pulled from the site.  Each Sunday, church members display the cross during worship at Culver City Presbyterian Church.

On Jan. 7, the day of the fire, Hardin first helped preschoolers to unite with their parents, then was later able to join his own family. His last acts at the church included sending a note to session members and then locking the door.

“He called me and said, ‘Grace, the flames are so close,’” Park said. “I could hear the shock in his voice.”

As people were evacuating the Palisades through only two routes in and out, a church member was directing traffic near the church. That member moved Hardin’s car a couple of blocks, which saved it from the fire’s destructive path.

“I was calling folks saying, ‘You really need to leave!’” Park said. Married just last September, Park’s daughter was a participant in the last to take place in the church’s sanctuary.

The two pastors talked with the PDA delegation for a time at the church site, and then everyone circled up while González-Castillo said a word of prayer.

The steeple at Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church (Photo by Rich Copley)

“Dear God, we’re standing on sacred ground — not only because of events, but because we believe you’re still in this place,” González-Castillo told the Almighty. “In the midst of pain, sorrow and anger, we pray for your Spirit to move around the community, those near and far. We ask for your Spirit to embrace them with hope, with the expectation you’re still in control.”

“Provide them with spaces of security,” he prayed, “that they may feel the embrace of a church that’s visible and invisible.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Janelle Miles, Mission Specialist, Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries, Interim Unified Agency

Debbie Miller, Associate for Client Services, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program  

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, give us strength to follow your call to provide for the needs of people. Help us to remember that man does not live on bread alone, but on the Word of God. Take us to unfamiliar places and to the people whom you know and love. Amen.