Saturday, November 15, 2008

Westmont College Fire

My sister-in-law,Rebecca, sent this prayer request (yesterday) and update (today) about the fire situation at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA. (a sister college of Taylor University). Until a couple of months ago, Rebecca was the women's soccer coach at Westmont. Carter and Rebecca have since moved to the cornfields of Indiana, but have friends, colleagues and students who are and will be affected by the fires.

I, personally have a special place in my heart for Westmont, as 1) it was one of my top college choices, 2) my music teacher and my best friend convinced me (for approximately 18 agonizing hours) that I had been requested to give my testimony to their entire student body for chapel, and 3) I was personally sung to by the Westmont Ensemble! :)

Will you pray for them?

Nov. 14

Hey all,
Some of you have heard, but a fire started in Santa Barbara that hit Westmont pretty hard. Because of sun downer winds coming over the mountains (70 mph gusts), there was not time for Westmont students to evacuate. Fortunately, Westmont has an emergency fire plan in place and all students made it to the gym for refuge. One of the dorms was burnt (half of Clark hall) and the Science building. Some other buildings burned down, but they were all going to be demolished by the end of the year (Westmont is in the process of building some new buildings.)

One of the sadder things that happened is that 14 faculty members lost their home. Westmont has "Faculty housing" that only faculty at Westmont can buy. Three of my former coaching colleagues lost their homes, along with 11 other faculty members that I worked with. I am sure they are devastated right now, and would appreciate any prayers. Below is a link to a "post fire" video that shows the Science building. This is the building that had a GREAT view that I would take recruits to at the end of our campus tour. Anyhow, I am just sure they would all appreciate prayers in this hard time! I know they are all thankful that there were no deaths, but it is still a large pill to swallow.

http://disaster.westmont.edu/www/system_status/

Nov. 15

Things seem to be settling down at Westmont, as all the danger of fire is away. Westmont has posted pictures of the aftermath on campus if you're interested...

http://www.westmont.edu/

...seeing these pictures were a good reminder for me to continue praying despite the danger being gone.

Love,
Rebecca

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for posting Erika... really appreciate it and I know the Westmont community does too! I didn't realize that were so connected to Westmont!! :-)