Los Angeles – carrying a high wooden cross on his shoulder, Pastor John Shaver walked down the street where his church had been found, just three months ago.
Shaver had led the 102 -year community of Pacific Palisades for just six months when Burned on the ground in the January Forest Fire That almost decimated the community.
On Good Friday, Shaver and a handful of community members gathered at the site of the church delayed in the middle of the noise of lifting wheelbarrows and cats that were cleaning and preparing the earth for reconstruction.
Then they embarked on a Good Friday “Cross Walk”. From their church to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, they stopped in nine locations, reading a fresh Bible at each stop, a slight deviation from the traditional devotion of 14 steps that commemorates the suffering, crucifixion and the death of Christ.
Each station represents a specific event on the last day of Jesus, from his conviction to death on the cross and burial.
Although the Church has celebrated regular Sunday services in other places recently, this was the first time that the members had stepped on the church site after the fire in which almost 80% of the congregation, including Shaver, had lost their homes.
Remembering what was lost in the fire
The member of the Christine Odionu Church stopped for her burned condominium.
She said that everything left of her house was the garage. His eyes got along while talking.
“It’s too painful,” he said. “Easter is a moment of hope. But today it feels like a sad day, a day of mourning.”
A member of the Church for a long time, Annette Rossilli, 85, was among 29 people who were killed throughout the Los Angeles Area after forest fires Driven by dry conditions and winds of burst exploded on January 7.
Shaver remembered Rossilli when the cross group walked down the street.
Hey, he also stopped at the place where his house was: the house that he, his wife and two daughters, 18 and 16, had moved in July.
Shaver looked at the plot of land of the bars and briefly remembered everything that was lost in the fire, including the relics of his grandparents.
“It is also a reminder of how much we have taken for granted,” he said that on this day, he chose to wear clothes that people donated after the fire with that spirit of appreciation.
Remains and signs of renewal
On Good Friday, Via de la Paz, the street where the property of the Church is located, was full of activity such as construction vehicles, demolition equipment and water trucks rolled by the street.
The workers in green and orange vests were cleaning the rubble. Despite the bustle, the scene was disturbing.
The chard palm trees were rolled up and sank like worn taxi drivers.
Twisted metal and deformed wood trapped with destroyed milkshakes.
In a plot, the only intact structure that remained was a brick fireplace. In another, two bright and broken red adirondack chairs sat in the middle of a lot of rubble.
Several owners had put blue signs on their properties that said: “This house will rise again.” The black and white sign of a family said: “Let’s go home! I hope to see you there. We miss you! Thank you for everything!” The Autonomous School of Palisades Elementary, whose building is still on the other side of the Church Street, had a brief message on its message board: “Pali will rebuild.”
Thomas Knoll, a neighbor since 2012 who also lost his home, said he came although he is a member of the Church or religious.
“This feels like a kind of funeral for Pacific Palisades,” he said. “The whole history of crucifixion and resurrection is appropriate here. This city will be rebuilt, but it will take a long time.”
Saving what remains and looking towards the future
The founders of the Church, who celebrated their center in 2022, built the city of Pacific Palisades.
The Church building was built in a 1.5 -acres site donated by the Methodist conference in southern California.
The planters of the Methodist Church, inspired by the Chautauqua movement, a social movement and social education at the beginning of the 20th century, selected the location, placing the bases for the community in 1922, offering art, music and cultural programs to residents.
“It was a peace movement,” Shaver said.
The Church, before it burned, continued in that tradition, organizing meals and community wedding meetings, funerals, baptisms, vacation celebrations, dances and games for sports activities for meetings of young people and alcoholics in the area.
While a lot was lost, Shaver said they could recover some articles, including ceramic cups and tiles.
A member rescued a large metal cross that stood at the top of the church tower, which burned.
A stone cross also survived the flames.
“We are going to try to find ways to incorporate several of those articles as we rebuild,” he said.
On the land of the church before the walk began, Adriana Ruhman was sifting through a pile of blackened and broken ceramic tiles.
After losing most family memories in the fire, I was examining them closely to see if you could find one that bored the manual traces of their two children.
They had succeeded when they attended the preschool of the Church 10 years ago.
“I feel that I hit the fat prize,” he said. “Only the idea that I could find the mosaic that my decorated children gives me hope today.”
A Good Friday and Easter promise
Mary Katherine Breland lives in Los Angeles, but said she attended this church because she reminded her or communities in Alabama where she grew up.
This was the first time he returned after the fire.
“We didn’t know what to expect, but it’s not until you see first hand that your emotions bubble,” he said. “But Easter is a good time for us to begin to unite in the church, reflect on the beauty of the past and look towards our new trip.”
Shaver said this was the first time that this church had a hero a crossed walk on Friday. He hopes to continue this tradition in the coming years. When they approached the cliffs, a yellow sign said “end.”
The group continued beyond the sign and stopped while caught a panoramic view of the Pacific.
On Easter Sunday, they will join the United Methodist Church of Westwood in Los Angeles to obtain services.
“Just although that sign said” end “, here we are in this incredible view,” Shaver told Congregants. “Then, the fire was not the end. We have a beautiful future ahead.”
Cruz’s razor and others were bare on Good Friday.
But when Easter Sunday arrives, said the shepherd, he will stop at a corner of his empty plot, decorated with fresh flowers as a symbol of his rebirth as a congregation.
