ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Melanie Pilz dismounted her bicycle Monday afternoon after returning from her work placement and stared in disbelief at her house being boarded up, the outside and inside blackened by thick smoke.
Her first words were: “All of my memories are in there.”
Pilz is one of four Service Adventure participants in the Albuquerque unit whose house was heavily damaged Monday, Dec. 12, in a fire.
The fire inspector told the participants that the blaze started when a heating vent in the floor melted a nearby rug and caused it to catch fire, sending billows of soot and smoke throughout the house.
Service Adventure gives young adults ages 17-20 the opportunity to live and serve in community with other young adults and a unit leader or couple. Albuquerque participants are Melanie Pilz, 19, from Rangsdorf, Germany; Erin Regier, 18, from Newton, Kan.; Hannah Martin, 18, from Greencastle, Pa.; and Michelle Peachey, 18, from Lancaster, Pa. Anna and Brian Yoder Schlabach, both 27, of Denver, Colo., are the unit leaders.
All of the participants were at work when the fire ignited, sometime between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. A neighbor called the fire department upon seeing the flames.
Most importantly, everyone is safe.
“Everything will need to be pitched or cleaned up,” said Carolyn Snyder, the Service Adventure support committee chair and a member at Albuquerque Mennonite Church.
On a cold, rainy Tuesday afternoon the day after the fire, the participants stayed home from work, waiting to get into the house to retrieve what they could. They found temporary refuge in the home of Bethany and Gabe Bauman Brubaker, former Service Adventure leaders who live in Albuquerque.
Sitting in the same clothes from the day before, they ate sandwiches, salad and Oreo cookies that were donated by church members.
They rehashed the events from the day before, considering the consequences of every action. What if someone had stayed home from work? What if the fire had ignited at night?
“You just can’t get stuck in all the ‘what ifs,’” Hannah Martin said.
They were in shock, but resilient, trying to glean whatever lessons they could from the experience.
Pilz said she was surprised by how little thought she had given to her belongings, other than her photos and journal. She said that when she returned home from work, Brian Yoder Schlabach told her, “All you have is what’s on your back.”
“It’s true that everything you’ve got can be taken from you at any moment,” she said. “We’re experiencing that a little bit.”
Download full-resolution image.“I sort of understand what it feels like to not have a house and not have all your stuff,” Martin added.
The hardest part for Regier is being forcefully removed from the only home she’s known in Albuquerque. She said she feels displaced.
“That’s the part of Albuquerque I connect to,” she said, “and it’s weird to not have that. We had just painted our room and it looked so homey.”
The house had been home to three Service Adventure units. Though it was a rental, church members and Service Adventure participants had invested many hours of sweat equity – painting, installing carpet, repairing floors, and fixing plumbing – over the last two and a half years.
Anna Yoder Schlabach had a chance to tour the damage on Monday evening. She said seeing the shell of what once was her home – recently decorated for Christmas – was difficult.
“That’s when I felt saddest – when I walked through and saw our snowflakes hanging up and our stockings hanging, covered in soot. It looked normal, but creepy,” she said.
The community has already responded. Two work placements were eager to donate what they could, and members of the Rio Vista Church of the Nazarene, a congregation that relates to the Albuquerque Mennonite youth group, immediately offered to collect donations to help furnish a new house. Peachey’s coworker from Learn and Play Daycare offered to take her to shop for clothes.
Mountain States Mennonite Conference churches were quick to send notes of encouragement and ask how they could help. Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp offered to waive the registration fee for young adult snow camp for all of the participants.
The Service Adventure support committee will be assessing what can be recovered and what will have to be disposed of. They will also compile a list of immediate and long-term needs. The most pressing challenge will be to find a new place for the unit to call home by the time they return from Christmas break in early January.
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact Andrew Clouse at andrewc@mmnworld.net, 574-523-3024 or 866-866-2872, ext. 23024.
