Lodi pastor thankful for community support following overnight house fire
By Carmela Karcher
Click here for updates on this story
SACRAMENTO (KOVR) — It’s a phrase no one is prepared to hear in the middle of the night.
“I was, like, kind of startled and then basically, ‘What’s going on? What’s that noise? And then, ‘There’s a fire,'” Vintage Church Pastor Timothy Stewart said.
That’s exactly what happened to Timothy Stewart and his family, waking up to alarms blaring and heavy smoke Friday morning.
“I woke up everybody. I got our dogs as fast as we could, went out the back sliding glass door and walked around and got out,” he said.
Fire crews quickly came and put out the flames. Their family is safe, but their three cats didn’t make it out.
Due to fire and smoke damage, their house is unlivable. They’re only left with salvaged pictures and boxes of memories.
“Now we’re in this journey of figuring out our next steps, really just taking it, you know, one step at a time,” Stewart shared.
Stewart and his family have given back to the community in countless ways, whether that’s through Vintage Church or their volunteer work with Love Lodi.
Now, it’s time for the community to give back to them.
“Not even exaggerating, there’s probably been 500 people that have been contacted just through text messages,” Stewart’s friend Pat Schumacher said. “I’ve seen probably five other pastors during the morning, come here, just express their condolences and just let them know that they got their support.”
From flowers to food to simple check-ins, the Lodi community has surrounded the Stewarts in support.
“We’re called to be a light to this world,” Schumacher continued. “One of the ways that we do that is we rally around each other and have a community that’s deeper than most people ever experience.”
Even in their time of grief, this family and community still have others top of minds. With help, they still delivered turkeys to families the same day as the fire.
“We can have joy and peace outside of circumstances. That’s kind of where we’re at right now and so we’re just living in that and walking by faith,” Stewart continued. “You reap what you sow, kind of, right? We’ve sown a lot of love and we’re reaping that and it’s, it’s good.”
The Stewarts say they are overwhelmed and thankful for the amount of support their community has shown them.
Friends have also created an online fundraiser to help them during this time.
This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate partner and does not contain original CNN reporting.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.