After the Eaton Fire took everything — including the home Ethan Schweitzer grew up in — a single text message became the foundation for something new.

The house on Mount Curve in Altadena was built in 1928. It had old insulation, walls that cracked every time you hung a picture, and all the imperfections that come with a home that has been lived in and loved for nearly a century. It also held something no contractor could replicate: the pencil marks on the door frames where Ethan and Jennifer Schweitzer had tracked their children, Eli and Evie, as they grew taller year by year.

Ethan grew up in that house. His parents left it to him, and he and Jennifer were raising their kids in it. The plan, as plans tend to be for a family home passed between generations, was simple: they would care for it, fill it with new memories, and one day hand it down again.

Then the Eaton Fire came through Altadena on January 7, 2025, and the house on Mount Curve was gone.

Like Losing a Family Member

“When it was lost in the fire, it was like losing a family member, really,” Ethan said. “It’s been rough. The time since we lost the house, and I don’t know what else to say.”

Jennifer did know what to say, not because the grief was lighter for her, but because she had decided early on that someone in the family had to hold things together. “I’m the rock of this family,” she said. “I kept it together.”

But keeping it together and being okay are not the same thing. The Schweitzer family was managing. They had a place to stay, and they were functioning. From the outside, it looked like they were fine. From the inside, it did not feel that way at all.

“I had my family, but I felt like they felt like we were okay because where we lived,” Jennifer said. “But we were not okay.”

A Message She Almost Ignored

Then a text message arrived.

Expressions Church had been reaching out to families affected by the Eaton Fire, and Jennifer received a simple message: Could they pray for her?

She didn’t know who it was from. She was in the middle of trying to manage insurance, logistics, housing, her children’s emotions, and her husband’s grief — all while holding her own together. A text from a stranger asking to pray should have been easy to ignore.

But she said yes.

“And just me reading it felt like I wasn’t alone or I wasn’t going to do it by myself,” Jennifer said. “I had some hope. And we’re going to be okay.”

That single exchange opened a relationship with Pastor Christopher of Expressions Church that has not stopped since. He became the person Jennifer could call not just for logistics or resources, but for the things that do not fit neatly on an aid application. When the family had to give up their two German Shepherds — dogs they had raised for 11 years — because no rental would accept them, Jennifer asked Pastor Christopher to pray that someone would take them. Within a week, someone did.

“That’s the power of God,” she said. “I felt like he was sent to me for a reason.”

The First Thing on Her Mind

Eight months after the fire, on a warm morning in Altadena, the Schweitzer family stood on the bare foundation of their new home. The 1928 house was gone, but the lot on Mount Curve was still theirs. Construction had begun. And Jennifer had one request before the walls went up.

She wanted Pastor Christopher to bless the foundation.

“That was the first thing on my mind when I talked to construction,” she said. “I want to have the pastor bless [the house] because I felt like he was there since day one. And he’s still there by our side.”

Pastor Christopher came. He stood with the family on the concrete slab and read from the Gospel of Matthew: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall.” Then he placed a Bible at the foot of the new foundation and prayed a blessing over the home and the family who would fill it.

It was, as Jennifer put it, beauty from ashes.

Starting the Marks Again

The door frames are gone. The pencil marks that tracked Eli and Evie’s height through the years burned with everything else. Jennifer wishes she had taken a picture. But she is not dwelling on what was lost. When the new house is ready, she plans to have the kids stand against a fresh frame and start the marks again.

“I want their kids to see it,” she said. “This house is going to be passed down.”

Ethan, who could barely speak through his emotion earlier, found his voice for the close: “Yes, we are going to be okay. And I’m very excited to see the new house.”

Gloo exists to shape technology as a force for good — connecting the faith and flourishing ecosystem so that a church can reach a family at the exact moment they need it most. For the Schweitzers, that moment was a text message. Not a grand gesture. Not a check. A question: Can we pray for you?

Today, Gloo serves more than 140,000 faith, ministry, and nonprofit leaders. But the impact is measured in moments like this one — a family standing on a new foundation, a pastor reading the Bible over fresh concrete, and a mother who finally felt like she was not carrying it alone.

“It was a blessing,” Jennifer said of that first message. “It worked. Just so I could have something to read and not feel alone. And that’s what it did.”