From senior staff writer Emily Belz: Los Angeles felt tense. I was there to cover the widespread immigration raids in the area, and people worried about passing cars with tinted windows—is that ICE? 

Just six months ago, wildfires tore through entire neighborhoods in LA. Now people who lost homes and churches are ministering to families of those arrested in immigration raids. In our piece today, we focus on Pasadena and Altadena, LA communities that suffered from the Eaton fire and are also home to sizable Hispanic communities.

Andrew Mark, a pastor at Pasadena Covenant Church, told me that at one point in recent weeks, he realized, “I hit my max.” He and his church have been responding to fires and then the raids. 

In January, when I interviewed pastors from Paradise, California, about the fire that leveled their town, they gave advice to Los Angeles congregations. 

“God is at work,” said Josh Lee, pastor of a church that burned down in Paradise. “Trust that, even though [recovery] seems very scattered and not linear.”

I found LA Christians responding to the raids now repeating those truths to themselves with this new challenge.