After the Eaton Fire devastated communities in California’s San Gabriel Valley, the interior of the Pasadena Mennonite Church building was unrecognizable.

“Piles and piles of ash — ash on every horizontal surface,” said church member Dan Sharp.

The building, constructed in 1957, is not only home to the Mennonite congregation but also the Spanish-speaking Conexion Church of the Brethren, as well as the nondenominational The Church We Hope For.

The fire killed 17 people and destroyed 9,414 structures in January. It also left the three congregations and their collective 270 members with no place to worship until the building could be professionally cleaned.

Less than two weeks later, leaders from Mennonite Disaster Service reached out to Pasadena Mennonite Church to see how MDS could help.

The MDS California Unit funded half the cost of cleaning the building, and the three churches raised the rest. By March the congregations were back in their space and working together to help their communities recover.

In Altadena — north of Pasadena, 14 miles from downtown Los Angeles and just five blocks from the church building — recovery was just beginning.

“Altadena has always been a special place,” Sharp said. “It’s diverse racially and socioeconomically in ways that aren’t found in the rest of Los Angeles County.”

Sharp and others who live in Altadena realize they can’t rebuild their community exactly the way it used to be. There are many challenges in rebuilding, including obtaining permits and the rising cost of building materials. A toxic mix of ash and debris still covers the ground.

Yet Sharp, who retired as a civil engineer for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, sees reasons for hope.

“We know a lot of best practices to help make homes more fire resistant,” said Sharp, who attended MDS leadership training in mid-March.

Several members of all three churches have completely lost their homes, and many families are displaced because their homes are still full of toxic smoke and ash.

By early April, in the Altadena area, MDS was continuing to explore possibilities for a long-term response by engaging with the emerging local long-term recovery committee and other partners.

“I sat in that chair and did a puzzle,” said Anne Tipton as she pointed out the parts of her home. “There was the ironing board. Those were our camp chairs.”

But her home is now ashes. Nearly every house on her street in Altadena burned. Two months later, on March 8, she and her husband moved into an apartment. Until then, they lived with
a friend of the family.

Winds up to 90 mph fueled the fires that first evacuated Tipton to her parent’s house. When the fire came within one mile of that house, she helped her parents evacuate even further out.

She studied footage on television and strained to recognize homes. Then she got a text from a neighbor: Her house was gone. Tipton wants to rebuild, and she can’t imagine leaving Altadena. She finds comfort in her church family at Pasadena Mennonite and her friends and family.

“What gives me hope? It’s the people who care about us,” she said.

While it’s hard to visit the burned remnants of her home, Tipton returns often, checking on neighbors who might stop by their properties.

“I just come back to stand here, because my body knows it’s home,” she said.

Juan Pablo Plaza, pastor of Conex­ion Church of the Brethren, prays for wisdom every day. A husband and a father of two young girls, he’s trying to care for a lot of people.

Plaza lost his home when the church parsonage burned. Since then, he and his family have been living an hour’s drive away from the church and the girls’ elementary school. But he is glad to make the drive.

“Our daughters have already lost their home,” he said. “We didn’t want them to lose their school and their friends as well.”

The fires affected the entire Hispanic community, especially in Altadena, which does not fit the high-income stereotype many people associate with the Los Angeles area.

“Fire has no social class,” Plaza said. “A lot of people from my church had jobs cleaning houses, and those houses burned, so they have no jobs now.”

People who were economically vulnerable before the fire are struggling in a recovery that will take years.

The three churches that share a building have always worked together, but now they’re collaborating even more.

“The fire has also bought me closer to God,” he said. “I am making a lot of decisions, and they affect a lot of people, so I pray for wisdom every day.”