3 months after San Bernardino, victim's church hangs on to hope

This story is part of a two-part series on faith communities coping with the San Bernardino tragedy. Read part 1 in the series here. 

Church of the Woods in Lake Arrowhead is nestled high in the mountains, a church known for its spiritual leadership in the small town and more recently, a string of misfortune.

Mike Wetzel, who often joined the hundreds flooding into the church each Sunday, was killed along with 13 others in the Dec. 2 mass shooting in San Bernardino. Another former member, Jeremiah McKay was a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy killed in the final standoff with ex-LAPD cop Christopher Dorner. 

“For a small church on the mountain to have had two major incidences like this, that really got national publicity is very unusual," said Senior Pastor Rod Akins. "My only desire is to give the Lord the glory and just to point people to the Lord. God can take a tragedy like this and use it for good."

Wetzel was mainly known around the church as a quiet guy, one who devoted most of his time and energy to his wife and six kids. To know he was ripped from the earth in such a violent way shook the people who knew him. 

“It’s kind of rattled some people’s faith,” Akins said. “But the reality is, is that I believe God is restraining evil from going rampant and that things like this would happen more often if God was not restraining it.”

One of those who still feels rattled is Dana Weaver, a children's pastor at the church.

Wetzel's children attended the youth group at the church and he and his wife Renee taught Sunday school classes together. 

“He was just such a great uplifting presence every time he was here on campus. You know, just smiling and fun,” Weaver said.

Weaver’s favorite memory of him was of a contribution he made to the annual play this past Christmas. In the play, a charity Christmas tree lot is saved from being shut down by being granted a last-minute permit. Wetzel, who worked as a health inspector for San Bernardino County, thought one of the official permits he regularly issued for work would make a great prop.

“He came into my office and handed me a city permit, and he wrote on there, ‘Jesse’s Tree Lot,’ put the church address, signed and dated it and put that there were no violations, and he’s like, ‘Here, Dana, use this in your Christmas play,’” Weaver said. “He was just an all-around great guy, genuine to the core.”

Wetzel was killed three days before the date he’d written on the permit.

San Bernardino mass shooting victim Michael Wetzel made this letter grade card as a prop for the church's Christmas play. The card was dated for the original date of the play, three days after Wetzel died in a mass shooting on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015.

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Maya Sugarman/KPCC

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Weaver said even months after the attack, some of the children in her Sunday School class are still shaken.

“Just this past Sunday, somebody asked a question, and I can’t remember what it was, but it had to do with fear, and it had to do with bad guys. So we just took a moment to kind of talk about that and address it. And that was definitely a direct result of what happened,” she said.

Akins response is to turn his congregants' attention away from this world and into the next. A central tenant of his belief is that the world is actually getting worse, not better — and that's part of God's plan. 

“The prophecies of Christ’s return are being fulfilled in our very day, and one of them is lawlessness will increase. And I think we are seeing that,” Akins said.

Akins believes the San Bernardino attack is a sign that the end times are near, which can give hope, because it means paradise is within sight. For some who mourn Wetzel's loss, there’s solace in the belief that he is experiencing paradise now.

“There’s a comfort in knowing that, man, he’s doing awesome right now. That he is witness, right now, to things that are only in our imaginations,” said Mike Encoe, youth pastor at Church of the Woods. “The hard thing is that Renee and the kids aren’t.”

Encoe said the role of the church will be to continue supporting Wetzel’s family in the years to come.

As the church continues to heal, Encoe said it's ok for sorrow and hope to coexist. 

"I have permission to weep. I have permission to wail, and mourn, and cry, and question, and pound my fists on the ground, but I have a hope in something that will overcome," he said.