House fire causes pastor to live out his sermon series

BASTROP—The Sunday bulletin for River Valley Christian Fellowship in Bastrop challenged those in attendance to number God’s blessings—“a spouse, kids, job, and a roof over your head.”

Within a few days, at least 11 families from that church and 20 from a sister Southern Baptist church, First Baptist Church of Bastrop, had lost their houses in a catastrophic blaze that spread across the county Labor Day weekend and continued to burn the next week.

As of Sept. 8, wildfires in Bastrop County, southeast of Austin, had destroyed nearly 1,400 homes, the Texas Forest Service reported.

Pastor Cody Whitfill of River Valley and his family were among the thousands of residents evacuated on Sunday afternoon of Labor Day weekend. In the next two days church members prepared 5,500 hamburgers and over 1,000 tacos for relief workers battling the most destructive wildfire on record in Texas.

After a long day of delivering meals, Whitfill learned the fire had moved within a half mile of his house but had not jumped the road along the subdivision.

“That was a good report,” he said, recalling that he went to bed with the assurance that his house was fine. By Tuesday morning, Sept. 6, he was standing on his property looking at only the ashes that remained.

Much of the pastor’s focus in the pulpit in recent weeks has centered on “suffering well for Christ,” he said. “When I stand up and preach next Sunday the message will be the same—that Christ really is our hope,” Whitfill told the TEXAN. “But I wonder how well that would have stuck had we not gone through this with people who had lost everything in the same way. It will help our witness.”

When the opportunity arose to serve those fighting the fires, the six-year-old church already had experience grilling 500 burgers each Monday night for the homeless, low-income folks and anyone else who shows up on Main Street. Their work through a non-profit ministry formed by members of the church made it easier to be prepared when the need arose to serve relief volunteers.

Whitfill believes their continued demonstration of concern for physical needs will provide an opportunity to care for spiritual needs as well. In the words of his wife, Melinda, speaking to a reporter from KPRC-TV in Houston hours after learning her own house was gone, “This is our community, where we live and we love them. We’re to be the hands and feet of Jesus.”