On a cold, snowy Christmas Eve and into the wee hours of Christmas morning 2002, Gladys Paulus woke to the sound of the smoke detector. An electrical short upstairs led to a chair melting and pieces falling through an old style ceiling register located near the smoke detector in the room below. Grandsons Chad Stoll and Isaac Matthews were staying the night with their grandparents in rooms very close to where the fire started.

Gladys woke her husband Melvin, realizing the danger upstairs. They hollered to wake up the boys and called the fire department. When Chad opened his door, the smoldering fire burst into flames. Both boys emerged engulfed in smoke but all made it to safety.

Responding quickly, the fire department broke the upstairs window where they observed flames and began pouring in water limiting flame damage to that room. Temperatures in the upstairs were at a point where flames could burst spontaneously. It was a miracle the house was saved.

Don and Jean Graber, as congregational Coordinators for Sharing Services accessed Joe Christophel, claims manager, through the 24/7 claims service on Christmas Day. The next day, Don and Jean gathered others of the church family and surrounding neighbors to begin moving things out in preparation for the commercial cleaning crew. The Youth group worked on moving salvageable items into the garage and the rest into a dumpster. “Everyone was fantastic getting everything out,” reported Gladys.

Sharing Services Agency encourages such church community caring and sharing and places a value on this form of mutual aid through its Loss Restoration Partnership. The program makes a contribution to the church benevolence fund as part of the loss recovery costs covered by the policy.