‘That was my home': faith communities without worship spaces after LA fires

The Guardian

24-03-2025

Before the Masjid Al-Taqwa, a mosque in Altadena, was reduced to rubble in the Eaton fire in January, it was a space that belonged to all its worshippers. When the urge for prayer stirred the soul during off-hours, a faithful follower could borrow the key and have the place to pray.
Now without a mosque during Ramadan, members are worshipping in diaspora. The weekly communal prayer services are temporarily held in a park community room. After hours at a Muslim elementary school, members break their fast together. It's a fragmented spiritual existence.
'It is a huge void,' said Jihad Shakoor, 48, about losing the mosque. He looks around the utilitarian community room after a prayer service. 'It just feels like now it's a whole different chapter.'
The Eaton fire destroyed more than 14 houses of worship. Some of these religious institutions have the resources to find stable alternative locations for their congregants. But for smaller, family-run places of worship, recovery is a rockier process. Some have no alternative worship site yet. Others are adjusting to a state of 'temporary normalcy'. But all face uncertainty.
In Altadena, a historic Black center of life, these small, family-run places of worship are one of the originating fibers of the town's social fabric. These were places close enough for residents to walk to and have intimate conversations with their Higher Being.
The fire that burned down the mosque also took the home and office of the Masjid Al-Taqwa founders and board members, Aaron and Delores Abdus Shakoor – Jihad's parents. It's a common phenomenon in the fire-ravaged town, where faith leaders lived and worked in the same neighborhood they served. For these family-run places of worship, the road to recovery is often marked with tension over how to rebuild.
Congregants who crave normalcy and want a quick rebuild are often met with a sobering question: how long are they allowed to grieve?
'It's a hard balance,' said Jihad, chair of the mosque's disaster relief relocation committee. 'I wish there was more patience in the community.'
'It just doesn't seem like it's going to happen that fast,' said Jihad. 'And it doesn't seem like it's something that makes a lot of sense to rush.'
Churches, according to Henry Louis Gates Jr, a professor and author of The Black Church, were the first institutions built by Black people that operated independently of white society. Smaller churches such as the Abounding Grace Ministries in Altadena provided spiritual nourishment through a family-run ethos.
Thomas C Bereal Sr, the founding pastor, has presided over the Pentecostal church in different capacities since 2009, with most of his family by his side. His daughter, Jessica Vance, serves as director of worship and executive of operations. His son-in-law, Rand Vance II, is head deacon. For generations, church has been a family affair.
'That's just been life,' said Jessica, 34. 'When other kids were going to Halloween parties. I was going to Hallelujah Nights.'
Then in January, it was all gone. Jessica, who lived a few blocks from the church, lost her home. Many congregants suffered the same fate, compounding the tragedy and fraying the church's social fabric. When a house of worship is lost, so too are the connections.
'When we lose the building, we start losing that part of the fabric of the community,' said Dwight A Radcliffe Jr, academic dean at the William E Pannell Center for Black Church Studies at Fuller Seminary. 'We lose the connection to community figures who helped build those churches.'
Worship services have not resumed since Abounding Grace Ministries burned down. Once, the tan structure on North Fair Oaks Avenue was a center of spiritual music and family history. Now, it is a ghostly field waiting for bulldozers to clear the twisted debris.
A nearby church, the Hillside Tabernacle City of Faith, which sustained damage in the fire, set up a temporary alternative worship space in a city about 13 miles east of Altadena.
For now, the Abounding Grace Ministries remains in limbo in part because Bereal is still processing the losses alongside his members. Jessica and her family now live with him. Often, his four-year-old grandchild asks to return to the home that no longer exists.
'I'm moving forward as slowly as it takes,' said Bereal, 71. 'I just don't see going – as we say – business as usual. Because it's not.'
Before the pandemic, Abounding Grace Ministries' services drew hundreds, but isolation changed the contours of worship. Long after stay-at-home orders were lifted, some congregants continued engaging virtually. Still, a core group of about 20 always showed up, said Bereal. For those people, he hopes to build a bigger and stronger church – just not yet.
The congregation may be a part, but they remain in each other's prayers.
'I think that's what we're supposed to do as believers,' said Jessica. 'It goes beyond the four walls. And this is where true ministry happens in times like these.'
The Masjid Al-Taqwa, a historically Black mosque that grew out of the Nation of Islam, has been rooted on Lake Avenue since 1999. Finding a new temporary space has been challenging. The mosque's board is considering a few options for a temporary lease, said Jihad. Until then, their weekly prayer sessions will be held at the Jackie Robinson Center in Pasadena through the end of April. This will take them to the end of Ramadan, a holy time of prayer, fasting and reflection.
The fragmented nature of worship is bittersweet for Sakeenah Ali, 40, a mosque member since 2017. Both Muslim and non-Muslim community leaders have offered grace and support. Ali is grateful to be in a supportive temporary worship space.
But during Ramadan, she's used to being at the masjid daily.
'That was my home,' she said through a flood of tears about the loss of the mosque. 'It still feels like you're just ripped apart from your spiritual house.'
The last 10 days of Ramadan are the most sacred, said Ali. They are marked by overnight prayer sessions – logistics which seem nearly impossible under these current conditions.
During this unusual Ramadan, a saying from the Quran is often repeated: with hardship, comes ease.
'You will have difficulties in your life, but don't lose faith,' said Aaron, the mosque's founder and board member.
Masjid Al-Taqwa and the Abounding Grace Ministries have now joined an unlikely fellowship of religious institutions devastated by natural disasters. In 2023, wildfires swept through the town of Lahaina in Maui and took the 200-year-old Waiola church, the final resting place for members of Hawaiian royalty.
In March, nearly two years after the Lahaina fire, Waiola held its first monthly outdoor worship service on church grounds. The debris has been cleared, but no structure has been rebuilt yet.
Being back on the land was healing, said Anela Rosa, the church's Kahu Pono or licensed pastor. Goosebumps bloomed on the arms of congregants who drove from far off locations on the island to attend the historic service.
In its long history, Waiola church has suffered many disasters – and it has been rebuilt each time. To Altadena's religious community, Rosa, 65, has advice: be patient and have faith.
'As much as the church is a structure, the people are what's more important,' said Rosa. 'We can rebuild the church. We cannot rebuild people.'