First person: Remembering the Bastrop fire and giving thanks

As soon as we found out where it was in progress, I began calling members telling them there was a fire, urging them to grab what they could and get out ASAP. A lady who attends a Bible church in Austin began texting me, asking what she could do to help.

In the meantime, Raymond went to open up the church so people had a place to go. Our first concern was safety, shelter, food and clothing for all who were seeking a place to flee from the fire. Our church had been the only church in town that had experience in disaster relief assistance. When folks from Houston left during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, they usually ran out of gas, food and money before they got to their destination.

So, First Baptist in Bastrop took them in, providing food and shelter for all of their family whether it was kids, dogs, cats or chickens. All were guests and housed during these disasters. So, we had experience, but we were not expecting such a devastating fire. 

On Monday morning, a delegation from Second Baptist Church in Houston came to assist us and offered advice. They helped us get organized for this overwhelming moment in our lives. Raymond and those men went from church to church here in town, helping congregations get organized and offering assistance.

Mike Northern from First Baptist Church in Pflugerville came immediately to help, and he continued checking on us even after all others were gone. Austin Baptist Association was a valued resource. Dave Kehrer, a North American Mission Board trustee, gave tremendous support, opening up his home late in the night and uplifting us in prayer and giving us encouragement that helped us come out of shock into an action mode.

Calls came in from all over the United States, asking what people could do to help. One lady called from Houston. She had been one of the Katrina victims and spent time with us. She called and said First Baptist helped her when she needed help. She was moving up north and was willing to give a whole house full of nice furniture to someone who had lost everything.  Another church from Ozona came with a trailer full of clothes and food. It was a welcome sight. Those are just a few of the churches, and individuals who helped.  

The Southern Baptist and Texas Baptist Men Disaster Relief teams brought their trucks, laundry units, chainsaws and feeding units to help. The feeding units cooked the food at our church in the beginning, and the American Red Cross delivered it to each church that housed fire victims families. The laundry units washed clothes for the fire victims at each location. The American Red Cross helped with the food for a week or two. Usually, the Baptist teams help in an area for a week or two, but the damage was so great these units stayed until just a few days before Christmas.

Volunteers from more than 18 states, 800 to 1,000 people, helped clean lots, wash clothes, provide meals and just cry with folks when they needed someone to cry with.  They would leave the church early in the morning with clean clothes and come back looking like chimney sweeps because they had been in the toxic ashes all day long, helping one family at a time. We began to ask why they came to help us in Bastrop, a town they had never heard of before the fire and where they did not know anyone. They responded, “When we needed help in our state, Texas would come and help us, and the minute we heard that Texas needed our help, we didn’t give it a second thought.” 

One lady from another state who came on her first deployment told us: “I had just retired and asked the Lord how I could be used.  A friend told me about the Baptist Disaster Relief programs and I said to myself, ‘You know, that might be something I can do to help.’ So, I signed up and was scared to death and anxious to see if I could be used of the Lord. I got to Bastrop late at night because we had driven all day and all evening, trying to reach our destination. The next morning early, we got ready to go out and see what needed to be done on this family’s property that had lost everything.

“The first lady I met was a Native American Indian. How many are in Bastrop? Not many. That morning, the very first job on my deployment, I would be working with a Native American lady— the very people group I had retired from. No one knew that but the Lord. He knew I needed to help this lady as I began to pray and tell her why I was there. It was because of Jesus Christ and what he has done for me. The right person, at the right time, for the right job when it was needed most—that’s what the Lord does when we ask to be used.”

Many families lost everything, and one of them went over to the ashes where their home had once stood. A woman asked the Lord to just let her be able to find one thing. That was a million-in-one chance, because the fires reached immense heat, destroying everything in its path. There was not a spoon, fork, cup or anything.

Motorcycles melted to a ball of metal, and you would not even recognize it was a motorcycle if you did not remember it was parked in the garage. But the Baptist Disaster Relief teams came and sifted through the ashes, and they found a wedding ring that belonged to her grandmother—the one thing she asked the Lord to let them find. We never heard of anyone else finding any rings of any kind, but the Lord allowed them to find this one ring in the middle of ashes and rubble. 

Another family in our church was one of the first families to get out and go to the church for safety. But they had to leave immediately without anything—only the clothes on their backs. They have several daughters, and one is a talented artist. Her sister said, “Mom, all of my big sister’s drawings that she has won awards for are all gone.”

She was concerned not for all of her things, but the art her sister had drawn and the achievements she had earned.  Her mother later told me how the Lord cared about all the little things as well as the big things.

A lady in my Sunday School class,  Beckie, was working in Houston. Her boss said, “I’ll go down and get some pillows, sheets, towels and other items for someone to have.” Beckie did not know who needed the items, so she called me and asked for someone’s name when she got back into Bastrop. I told her to take it over to the family with the girls, and the lady said, “You know, the Lord cares about every aspect of our lives.” She said there was even some gum and mints in the bags, and they were my favorite kind.  The Lord knows what we are in need of even before we ask. 

One man lost his wife a year earlier, and he was lonely, depressed and was just beside himself with grief. The fire broke out, and he immediately volunteered at one of the Baptist churches in town. He kept asking some of the firemen about his home and finally found out all of it was destroyed. The house, storage shed, garage all reduced to ashes. He looked over, and his chicken house was the only thing standing. How interesting, he thought, the one thing I would never expect to still be standing. After his wife died, he was so depressed a friend of his gave him a rooster. He said, “Great, I’m a chicken farmer. I guess I better get me some hens for this rooster.” So, he went and bought 10 hens and he said; “Now I know I’m a chicken farmer.” 

Time went on, and he started raising chicks. He had built a chicken house for his new chickens. As he was volunteering at the Baptist church where he would help serve meals to the firemen, police and all the first responders on that side of Bastrop, he found a fireman who had tried to save his home by fighting the fires. The fireman began to tell him about his home.

He said: “I was there fighting the fires on your home trying to save it when I looked over at the Chickens. They had all formed a circle inside the play yard area and began to scratch up dirt. When one of the chickens would get burnt, it would run to the middle of the yard and roll around in the dirt and immediately returning to its post to continue scratching up the dirt to try and fight the fire that had surrounded their home.” When it was all over, the firemen could not save the man’s home, garage or workshop, but the chickens scratched night and day until the fire was put out. Not one chicken died, and not one chicken’s home was lost, as far as we have been able to find out.

We lost 1,696 homes to the fire—hundreds of homes still standing but not fit to live in because of the smoke, water and fire damage. And when people were able to get back into their standing homes, one lady said she sat at her desk to write a note, and the desk fell apart. The glue in the desk had completely melted from the intense heat.
Some may ask, “Where was the Lord in all of this?” He was right there beside each one, caring for the responders, the victims, the  animals the items like the wedding ring—all working together for his honor and glory.

Eighty people were saved as a result of the Baptist Disaster Relief teams giving the gospel wherever they could. These 80 might never have heard the gospel until the Lord sent someone over to them and said, “He cares for you.”  One man said after he was saved: “I have to go call my mother. She has been praying for me for over 40 years. I want to tell her I now know the Savior she had been praying too for all of these years.”

Even the space shuttle was affected by the fires. As it flew over Texas, the crew could see the fires. They immediately asked Houston where all of the fires were and they told him Bastrop.

“Bastrop, that is where I take the Boy Scouts every year camping,” the space shuttle astronaut said. “My children and grandchildren will not have the opportunity to go to the camps at Bastrop as we have in the past. It will take generations to recover the forest, trees and wildlife. What a tremendous loss.”

It is certainly a reminder that sometimes in life you have no control over the circumstances, but the Lord is in control of all things. If we let him, God will bring us through the ashes to beauty. 

Thank you Texas, and all of the other Baptists from all of the other states for your love for the Lord—for your support and physical help.  It’s a true example of the Lord’s mercy, the Lord’s grace, and abundance of caring for people meeting all of our needs in this critical milestone in Bastrop’s history.