California on FIRE!

The first picture is from the shore of Mission Viejo Lake which many of you have passed as you drove up Alicia Parkway to our house from the I-5 freeway. The next one is of the reservoir behind our church building where neighbors watched helicopters constantly filling water tanks to fight the fires for days! The last one is taken from the parking lot at the Oakley Headquarters where many of our friends and church members work and is just down the parkway from our house!

As you saw on the news, Southern California was covered in smoke over the last two weeks of October (we are still getting ash on our cars now). What a lot of you might not have realized was just how close the fire got to our very own home! My heart goes out to those who lost all they had in these fires! I had a small taste of what they might be feeling as I walked out my front door Monday night, October 22nd, to see bright orange flames in the hills above my little city! We actually had friends staying with us who had been evacuated from San Diego and were unable to return home for 3 days--just watching the news and checking the internet every night to see if their home was in the growing 'burn zone'. I learned a lot about the nature of fire & evacuation procedures during those two weeks, both from the news and from my Dad, (Ashland Fire Chief ;0), who was a constant source of comfort & wisdom--especially for the 2 days Chris was out of town! The most important thing I learned is that we do need to listen and obey our church leaders who counsel us to 'be prepared' for any emergency. I think by living here in California I am going to get more than my share of disasters (think earthquakes, mudslides, terrorist threats) so we'd better be ready!