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Prayers of Thanks Mark Westmont’s Tea Fire Commemoration
Westmont College faculty, staff, students and community members gathered on the lawn of the school’s prayer chapel Friday in remembrance of the wildfire that swept through the campus just one year ago.
Led by the Westmont College Student Association, those in attendance sang worship songs on the lawn, and prayers of gratitude were offered up by several of the students. God was thanked for sparing most of the campus and for sparing lives.
Inside the school’s chapel, a slideshow called “Ashes to Beauty” played through with images of the Tea Fire that ripped through the Montecito community and into Santa Barbara on Nov. 13, 2008.
Images of the hellish blaze that destroyed eight buildings and 14 faculty homes rotated with the aftermath pictures, displaying the charred buildings and a landscape of debris.
“We’re just so thankful that God protected the campus,” said Sara Stromer, WCSA junior president, who was at the commemoration. She said all of the campus buildings that were destroyed were slated for demolition anyway as part of the school’s master plan renovations.
The fact that the fire claimed no injuries among the 1,100-member student body was also a praise, she said.
As the fire swept down on the campus from the Tea Garden above Mountain Drive, students were herded into Murchison Gym, where they waited out the worst of the blaze. In all, the fire destroyed 230 homes as it scorched nearly 2,000 acres in the Montecito and Santa Barbara foothills.
Today, the 14 faculty homes that were destroyed have been rebuilt and families moved back in Nov. 1. Much of the campus is undergoing construction as well, and a large amount of rebuilding is in progress.
Stromer said the student group had been busy making and delivering cookies to 13 fire stations from Montecito to Goleta to express their thanks.
“We’re all just feeling really blessed,” she said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
» wrote on 11.14.09 @ 06:44 AM
Such a bunch of superstitious godbabble.
» wrote on 11.14.09 @ 02:46 PM
Does it not occur to these people that if god really intervened at the level of protecting Westmont then god was responsible for the fire itself.
» wrote on 11.14.09 @ 06:01 PM
Westmont pays no property tax and therefore the cost of putting out the fire at Westmont was paid for by the rest of us that pay property tax.
Westmont has received huge donations including a single doantion for $75M.
What about paying some of that to the county for fire and police protection.
» wrote on 11.14.09 @ 07:36 PM
Per SezMe’s comment: There is plenty of Biblical reference to support what you are saying. Much of Christianity today is the feel-good “God loves everyone” mantra while it is clear that God also sends plagues, fires, etc. Did it occur to them you ask?...it doesn’t appear that it did occur to them as they won’t acknowledge God’s wrath and judgement.
“Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, EXCEPT YE REPENT, YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH” LUKE 13:4-5.Exodus 9:15-16 “For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.”
2Timothy 3:5; “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”
“In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with EVERLASTING DESTRUCTION from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;...” 2 THESSALONIANS 1:8-9.
» wrote on 11.15.09 @ 06:18 PM
God!!!!
Don’t make me LAUGH!
» wrote on 11.16.09 @ 11:35 AM
Bunch of haters…
Give the school and community a break.
» wrote on 11.16.09 @ 12:20 PM
It’s okay. God DOES love everyone. The problem is that we are too small to understand all the good and bad things that happen in this world. Life is but a vapor.
Love God and others!
» wrote on 11.16.09 @ 01:10 PM
Weren’t there some rather serious injuries from this fire to people in the greater community? It’s a bit disconcerting to say G*d was merciful when that only applied the the school’s population.
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