Brad Brown
Benefitting Maranatha Volunteers International
Brad Brown and his wife Melea moved their two kids to Paradise, CA in 2012 after a hospital chaplain position opened up for Brad bringing with it the promise of cutting-edge medicine that could help Melea treat her colon cancer. After a miraculous six-year battle (she was given a 1 month prognosis), Melea passed, leaving Brad to care for their kids along with an outpouring of support and love from his Paradise community. Only months later, the Camp Fire wildfire, the deadliest in California history, ripped through town, moving the length of a football field a second. When the hospital ran out of ambulances, Brad started loading patients into his minivan and quickly became stuck in gridlock surrounded by flames. After a harrowing escape and an emotional reunion with his kids, Brad chose to stay in Paradise where 91% of homes burned to the ground, in order to provide comfort to the community who stood by him in his darkest hours. In this episode, Brad shares his lessons on finding meaning and purpose amid tragedy and the key things that can help a community heal from trauma.
Wise Words
“I woke up by six o’clock in the morning, getting ready for work, getting the kids ready for school. My son, who was 16 at the time, my daughter Alina, 13, they were packing their bags, eating breakfast. And as I was walking them out the door, we looked up, and even though our view is obscured by some trees on our property, we could see this cloud of smoke that was starting to form over our horizon. And so, the kids and I did the normal, pulled out our phones to check and see where this fire was coming from, and eventually we discovered this is in Pulga. This is probably about 7:20 in the morning, and the fire had started at 6:30 that morning. So, we’re almost an hour into the initial Camp Fire. It wasn’t significant enough, I didn’t even know where Pulga was, my children didn’t. You know, 20 miles east of us in some remote area, so we didn’t really have any level of concern other than the smoke.”
“But with that smoke, there was actually some ash falling too. It wasn’t hot ash, so I sent my kids off to school and went back in the house, finished getting ready for work, and at about eight o’clock, I headed out for the hospital. At that point, as I was driving out the driveway, I realized that that smoke that I had seen earlier had significantly increased, that that cloud actually had become basically an entire cloud encompassing our community. At that point, I still didn’t know how significant this fire was.”
“We knew the main front of the fire was coming up the ridge. You could hear it. It was like a freight train, just the sound was incredible. And you started hearing explosions too at this point because the fire had started spot fires all over the town of Paradise. And so, homes were burning, cars were burning, gas lines were exploding all over town. It was a war zone. I realized at that point, that I probably wasn’t going to make it out of town. We couldn’t go anywhere, we were stuck in the middle of this inferno. And so, I called my children immediately and I said, “Get out of town. Whatever you’re doing, drop it. I don’t care. Leave, go, go, go.” And then I called a friend and said, “Hey, I’m going to need you to watch over my kids.” And I gave him some personal information about bank accounts and just basic things.”
“And then I’m calling my kids back and I told them, “I don’t know that I’m going to see you again. I love you. Just know that you’re important to me, and if God wills it, we’ll see each other, and if not, just know that I love you.” That was pretty much the conversation with my children.”
“Finding meaning and purpose in life is important. I mean, it doesn’t really matter what your circumstance is, whether it’s a healthcare journey, accidents, loss of job, loss of community, that having an intrinsic value in yourself that you have something that gives you meaning and purpose beyond your circumstances is key.”
“Tomorrow’s a new day, what can I learn from the circumstances I went through? What’s the meaning of it? Sometimes it’s not always obvious then, but just being open to realize that maybe someday this will have meaning, and if not, it’s something that I personally can learn from.”
Links
Facebook: Brad Brown