Bad times require angels, and often they are us
Bill Michaelis lost his Canyon Country home to Southern California's voracious wildfires, escaping Sunday night with his wife and two kids in a car loaded with belongings.
Bill Michaelis lost his Canyon Country home to Southern California's voracious wildfires, escaping Sunday night with his wife and two kids in a car loaded with belongings.
When he returned to the three-bedroom house the next day, he found only a smoking hulk.
"It took my breath away - waves of crying," he said. "Now it's the waves of generosity. Some lady just came up - I've never met her before - and she handed me some money."
In the face of the inferno, Southern Californians have witnessed an outpouring of kindness, good deeds and generosity - acts that are helping hundreds of victims find the strength to rebuild. To rebuild not only their homes but also their faith in a higher power, the kindness of human beings and that same goodness in themselves.
Michaelis' church, The Sanctuary in Santa Clarita, has provided support - so many offers to help that he's begun turning them away.
"It has been said you don't want to mistreat someone you pass by because they could be an angel of God," said Myra Jolivet, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles.
"The deeper meaning is that angels appear in many forms and I think that is what we are witnessing - and, ironically, it's in the City of Angels."
One of those angels appeared to Christie Williams, who took refuge at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego after losing a home she had nicknamed Shangri-La.
Williams said she was approached by an older man who introduced himself as Gabriel, hugged her, reached into his pocket and gave her $100 - then disappeared.
"Gabriel, my angel!" Williams said Thursday during an interview on "Good Morning, America."
"He's one of the many angels here in San Diego today."
Similar acts of selflessness have been witnessed across the Southland.
At Camp Gan Israel in Running Springs, four Hasidic rabbis have been serving firefighters kosher meals while the blazes rage in the San Bernardino Mountains.
"This is a holy place," Josef Broed, a rabbi in the Orthodox Jewish movement called Chabad, told the Associated Press.
"God is going to watch over our place, and we will survive."
Amid the hazy chaos of the wildfires, Linda Johnson joined about 50 other volunteers Wednesday at the San Bernardino Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints to pack about 2,000 lunches for evacuees at the National Orange Show Events Center.
A day earlier, the same group made 500 lunches for crews on the fire lines in the local mountains.
Johnson said she will probably volunteer her services for lunches today and beyond.
Her church is partnered with the Red Cross, which is overseeing the evacuation center, to provide food to the refugees.
"The fire may be put out soon, but people will still be needing help," she said.
Steve Bayer, an American Red Cross volunteer who travels the country to help in disasters, said it's all in a day's work.
"There are angels all over," Bayer said.
"There are angels who don't give money, but volunteer 60 hours a week, helping people in hospitals, or helping as Red Cross and Salvation Army volunteers.
"That's what makes it all so beautiful." *
