Plug-In: Prayers for Maui -- houses of worship burned, then people of faith arrived to help

All of us have been watching news of the devastating wildfires in Hawaii.

That’s where we start our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith.

What To Know: The Big Story

Wildfires’ human toll: At least 55 people are dead in Hawaii’s worst natural disaster, and that number will likely rise as search and rescue operations continue, The Associated Press reports.

President Joe Biden, Pope Francis and other prominent leaders and ordinary people around the world are offering prayers.

Up in flames: The fires leveled the historic town of Lahaina on Maui, destroying cultural landmarks, according to ABC News.

Those landmarks include the Waiola Church, the first Christian church on Maui; and the Baldwin Home, its oldest house, which served as a missionary compound around 1834.

A Buddhist temple also is among the sites feared lost or damaged, as are Episcopal and Methodist churches.

USA Today’s Terry Collins shares these heartbreaking reflections from a leader of the Waiola church:

It took just two words for Judy Kinser to describe her beloved historic church on the island of Maui, which just celebrated its 200th anniversary three months ago.
"Destroyed. Devastating," Kinser, treasurer and office administrator at Waiola Church in Lahaina, Hawaii, said Wednesday. "Not sure if the church building and preschool buildings (are) also gone."
As word and images of the wildfires began spreading across the town of Lahaina, longtime member Anela Rosa, the church's lay minister of 13 years, tearfully confirmed the worst.
"It's gone, the social hall, the sanctuary, the annex, all of it," Rosa told USA TODAY Wednesday. "It is totally unimaginable."

Relief efforts: As always after disasters, faith-based organizations are mobilizing help.

First, a word of thanks to those who sent messages about the wildfires here in East Tennessee, asking if all was well here in the tmatt.net corner of the hills.

It helps to understand that the Tennessee Valley is about 40 miles wide here near Knoxville (click for map) and the worst fires have been in the East, in the Great Smoky Mountains. I live in Oak Ridge, which is up against the face of the Cumberland Mountains in the West. There is quite a bit of land, and often water, between the two ranges.

Still, everyone here knows people, or lots of people, who have been caught up in this story. I have been wondering -- given the culture in these parts -- when some kind of faith-centered story (other than people of faith jumping into the action at the level of volunteers, aid, etc.) would emerge from the flames.

If you've seen images from the Gatlinburg and Dollywood area fires, you know that hotels, lodges and rental cabins were hit hard. Can you imagine how many Bibles there were stashed in bedside drawers in all of those rooms, not to mention in the possession of the local residents?

That leads me to this interesting, and rather haunting, story that ran in The Knoxville News Sentinel and then was picked up by Religion News Service. To be blunt, the local headline doesn't do much to hint at what's really going on here: "Dollywood employee finds burned Bible page after wildfires."

The main difference between the News Sentinel and RNS versions of this story is that the team that worked on the original made the unconventional, but wise in my opinion, decision to put the Bible passage on that charred page right at the top of the text. Thus, the overture looks like this:

"O Lord to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness." -- Joel 1:19-20, King James Version