Wildfires claim life of United Methodist

Key Points:

• A cherished member of Community United Methodist Church in Pacific Palisades is among the people killed in the historic wildfires in southern California.
• Even as they mourn great loss, United Methodists are starting to pick up the pieces.
• The fires destroyed the buildings of two United Methodist churches. But the pastors already have plans to rebuild and have advice for what is needed now.

Annette Rossilli loved orchids, her United Methodist church and her pets.

When the fast-moving Palisades fire approached her home on Jan. 7, the 85-year-old widow declined multiple offers from fellow church members and neighbors to help her evacuate. Instead, she decided to stay behind with her dog Greetly, canary Pepper, turtle Pearl and two parrots — one of whom she had trained to say in true Mary Poppins fashion “Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious.”

The beloved member of Community United Methodist Church in Pacific Palisades is among at least 25 people killed in the historic wildfires that still threaten the Los Angeles area.

“She was the sweetest,” said her friend Joey Hargrove, Community United Methodist’s director of family ministries.

“She’d been involved in our church forever. During the pandemic, I’d started bringing her groceries every week and I have continued. In fact, the last thing she told me was that she loved me and to bring her paper towels. That was the day of the fire.”

Even as they grieve deep, personal loss, United Methodists across Los Angeles County are beginning to survey the devastation and take steps to move forward.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief has distributed two solidarity grants of $10,000 each to the California-Pacific Conference for responding to the Palisades fire on the California coast and the Eaton fire, near Pasadena on the eastern side of the county. The denomination's Louisiana Conference, itself no stranger to natural disasters, is also providing a $10,000 solidarity grant to California-Pacific.

The California-Pacific Conference — which encompasses United Methodist churches and ministries in the affected area — plans to use the grants for near-term evacuee support and eventually to support volunteer efforts.

“What I want you to know is we have been the church in action for the past week,” California-Pacific Conference Bishop Dottie Escobedo-Frank said in a video message on Jan. 14. She noted that conference churches are opening their doors, and church members their homes to people in need.

“I know that around the world, people are noticing what’s happening here,” she said. “I’m very grateful for the funding that you are sending to us now. We don’t need things. We need the funding so we can provide the correct items that are needed.”

For now, the California-Pacific Conference is waiting for the all-clear from local authorities to deploy early response teams to begin recovery efforts. The fires are ongoing, and even where the flames are extinguished, downed power lines, gas leaks and other hazards make many neighborhoods unsafe. Even the full death toll likely will not be known until investigators can safely enter all neighborhoods.

In the midst of all their heartache and uncertainty, United Methodists in southern California still gathered for worship Sunday. That included the two churches with buildings the fire reduced to rubble — Community United Methodist in Pacific Palisades and Altadena United Methodist near Pasadena. The congregations, scattered by evacuations, each worshipped online — finding comfort in each other and in God’s faithfulness.

“You are not alone,” the Rev. J. Andre Wilson, pastor of the multiethnic Altadena United Methodist Church, assured his flock during worship on Facebook live. He and his wife, Heather, led the service from where they are staying with family. Their own home still stands but is uninhabitable.

“This is rough,” he acknowledged. “Very few people know what it feels like to walk through the ash of what was, pull neighbors out of buildings and help them. But I want to start by giving God the glory.”

He thanked God that every member of the congregation is safe and alive. He and his wife also each assured church members that “God is still on the throne” and has a plan, in the words of Jeremiah 29:11, for their welfare and not for harm.

The Rev. Wilson stressed to United Methodist News that many fire survivors are still in shock and a vague offer to help may not address people’s actual needs. Instead, he suggested one way to help with immediate needs is to share gift cards through the California-Pacific Conference.

“People are in need right now,” he said. “There’s conceptual help and a lot of sympathy. But sometimes people need someone to say, ‘Hey, here is a Chili’s gift card right now,’ and bring it by their house.”

Both Wilson and the Rev. John Shaver, Community United Methodist’s pastor, are doing what they can to support the firefighters and connect with evacuated church members, including bringing gift cards for food and clothing. Most members of both congregations have lost their homes and almost all of their possessions.

Both pastors also hope to rebuild their churches. However, they acknowledged their congregants and communities face a long road ahead to recovery.

“I’ve got 20 years to retirement,” said Shaver, who also lost his home in the fire. “I’m staying here to rebuild. I’m staying here to help my family rebuild and show my daughters that we can have hope and that their dad’s going to help share the story of hope and healing.”

The Palisades fire, the largest of the wildfires, has already burned an area larger than Manhattan and destroyed most of the coastal community well-known as a home to celebrities but also people from all walks of life.

Rossilli, the longtime Community United Methodist member, was among the Pacific Palisades residents who never saw her name in lights but helped her community thrive. She and her late husband ran a local plumbing business for many years.

Hargrove described her friend as a kind and quirky lady, with purple hair, who would share the orchids she grew in her backyard greenhouse. She volunteered with the Pacific Palisades Orchid Society and United Methodist Women (now United Women in Faith).

However, Hargrove said, the story that she thinks best exemplifies Rossilli was when her friend adopted Greetly, a corgi-pit bull mix, shortly before the pandemic shut things down.

“She went to the shelter and said, ‘Give me whatever dog no one else is going to adopt,’” Hargrove recalled. “And so she had this dog that had such crazy anxiety — like she had to give it Prozac every day. … But that was her baby.”

Over the past six months, Hargrove said, Rossilli’s intensifying arthritis pain had kept her largely at home and prevented her from attending church. She had help from a caregiver at Luxe Homecare and friends from church. However, Hargrove thinks her friend was ready for the end of life.

“I feel like she kind of made her choice and knew what she was doing,” Hargrove said. “I mean, we all tried to get her to evacuate.”

Shaver, who only has been appointed to Community United Methodist for the past six months, said Rossilli meant a lot to many church members. Among those who counted Rossilli as a friend is perhaps the congregation’s most famous member, the actress Jennifer Garner.

Garner, who now works with the charity Save the Children, spoke about her friend and what Community United Methodist means to her in an interview with MSNBC’s Katy Tur, who also grew up attending the church.

“It’s my family’s church, and it’s where my kids went to Sunday school,” Garner told Tur. “We lit the Advent candle together there a couple of weeks ago. We watched the little kids perform. … It’s a gathering point for the entire community, and full of really quirky, cool, mostly blue-collar people of the community. And I love belonging there.”

The actress Jamie Lee Curtis, while not a church member, also attested to the church’s wider impact. She posted on Instagram that Community United Methodist Church was where she found sobriety 25 years ago.

Shaver is grateful to Garner and Curtis for sharing the church’s story with a wider audience and for their emphasis that Pacific Palisades is not just home to the financially well off. He also stresses that no matter their economic status, all people who lost homes and loved ones are suffering.

For fire victims, irreplaceable family photos and meaningful family treasures are now gone. Shaver, a fourth-generation Methodist pastor, lost stoles that had belonged to his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

A big concern for Shaver is finding a way to help the teachers, staff and students who were part of the church’s thriving preschool.

He stressed that the church has a distinct role to play in reviving Pacific Palisades. Methodists started the community a century ago as part of the Chautauqua movement to foster education and peace. Even after Methodist financial support for town development ended with the Great Depression, the church remained an inclusive center for town life.

The church has long been part of the Reconciling movement, which advocates for the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in church life. Shaver also works closely with other faith leaders in Pacific Palisades.

“Our church is called the church that started a town,” Shaver said. “So now what I’m saying to people is, we’re the church that will rebuild the town in collaboration with our other siblings in faith.”

Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.