Quake Makes Impact on Sermons, Charity : Religion: Spiritual messages today will stress preparedness for disasters and death. Collection plates will be passed to aid L.A.-area victims.

Many of the faithful who attend Orange County churches today will hear messages of spiritual preparedness inspired by Monday’s earthquake and will be asked to provide prayers and assistance for Los Angeles residents who are struggling.

While it is prudent to stockpile bottled water and food to survive an earthquake, several clergymen said they will tell their flocks that it is also important to be ready for death coming unannounced. Spiritual readiness, they will warn, cannot be achieved on the spur of the moment.

“With earthquakes there is hardly any time to prepare, so you have to be ready at every second, and that translates into our spiritual life too,” said Pastor David Sorensen, associate pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in Huntington Beach.

“Basically it does teach us that we never know when disaster might strike,” said Chuck Smith, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel in Santa Ana. “We never know when our time is going to come, so it pays to live a right kind of life, not to have any unfinished business.”

Smith said his sermon today will be about the great value God has placed on His people. The thought of God as a father taking watchful care of his children, Smith said, is comforting in a catastrophe.

Bruce Sonnenberg, senior pastor of the Village Church of Irvine, said he had been discussing Corinthians chapter by chapter, and by sheer coincidence, the title of his sermon this week is “Where, Oh Death, is Your Sting.”

“It is helpful to know when the earth starts to shake that even if this is the Big One, for us there is life after death,” Sonnenberg said. “That doesn’t mean people won’t be scared. But I would rather be scared with hope than scared and hopeless.”

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Some priests and ministers also will ask their congregations to pray for the quake victims of Los Angeles County and to make contributions to provide the needy with food, clothing and shelter.

“Our hearts and our prayers go out to the many in our Southland whose lives have been impacted by the death and destruction of the recent earthquake,” wrote the Most Rev. Norman F. McFarland, bishop of Orange, in a letter to be read today at all Roman Catholic Masses in Orange County. “Once again, we are vividly reminded of how fragile is our existence on this earth and how the even tenor of our lives can be overturned in an instant. It is a sobering realization.”

McFarland calls on Catholics to donate money to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Disaster Fund to help earthquake victims. Each parish should make its own decision about whether to take up a special collection, the letter says.

Smith, of Calvary Chapel, said one of the church’s ministries already has passed out 13,000 blankets to quake victims who are homeless and has ordered another shipment of blankets. In addition, he said, the church probably will contribute to a fund to help rebuild an affiliated church in Inglewood that was destroyed.

Sonnenberg said the Village Church of Irvine will take up a special offering today for earthquake victims and he will “encourage people to help and reach out. . . .” He said he expects to give his congregation’s donations to a church in the San Fernando Valley that can distribute it to those with the most need.

In addition to the church efforts, other local organizations have mobilized to help their northern neighbors.

The El Toro Marine Corps Air Station is conducting a canned food drive through Thursday for quake victims. The Marines asked residents to drop off donations at the air station’s main gate at Red Hill and Valencia avenues. Another drop-off center for donations of non-perishable food and clothing opened Saturday at O’Neil’s Moving and Storage, 2061 S. Ritchey St., Santa Ana. The center, which is operated by the American Red Cross and Catholic Charities, will accept contributions today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. Beginning Saturday, the center will scale back, and will be open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Red Cross spokeswoman Judy Iannaccone said the donation center did not collect many donations its first day, but she expects activity will pick up--about 150 people called Saturday for directions or to ask which items are most needed.

Four Orange County Fire Department stations, all in South County, are collecting supplies today for earthquake victims.

They include Station 19 at 23022 El Toro Road, Lake Forest; Station 22 at 24001 Paseo de Valencia, Laguna Hills; Station 24, 25862 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo; and Station 31 at 22426 Olympiad Road, Mission Viejo.

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The fire stations are collecting blankets, along with disposable diapers, juice, toys and clothing for children. A small group of Orange County residents, led by Anaheim restaurant owner Frank Garcia, who also arranges free Thanksgiving dinners for the needy, loaded thousands of pounds of food on trucks and vans before dawn Saturday, then drove to the San Fernando Valley to give it to earthquake victims.

The hastily arranged relief shipment, organized since Thursday, included 200 cases of eggs, 2,500 tortillas, 200 cases of canned menudo, fruit, vegetables, chips, milk and fruit punch, said Garcia, owner of La Casa Garcia Mexican restaurant in Anaheim.

“I was looking at TV about two days ago and saw everything was a disaster over there,” Garcia said. “I said, ‘Well, thank God we’re OK, but what about our neighbors over there?’ ”

With the help of local branches of the Salvation Army, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the League of United Latin American Citizens and Los Amigos of Orange County, Garcia and two dozen of his friends purchased, loaded, transported and then distributed the food to earthquake victims camping in Canoga Park and Northridge.

Garcia, who paid $8,000 out of his pocket to get the food to Los Angeles right away, said his friends have launched a drive to repay him.

Orange County firefighters, physicians, nurses and a search and rescue team have also pitched in to help residents deal with the devastation left in the wake of the earthquake.

By Saturday, most emergency volunteers had returned home, with only about a dozen Orange County firefighters and six emergency water trucks remaining in Los Angeles on standby. “They are strategically located in case there are fires,” said Emmy Day, Fire Department spokeswoman.

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Mike Ritter, an emergency medicine physician at UCI Medical Center, drove with three other doctors and six nurses to Granada Hills Medical Center on Monday morning, followed by another UCI medical team in a helicopter Monday night.

They found hundreds of people injured in the earthquakes waiting at an emergency room with only one doctor and a handful of nurses. The hospital was flooded, the lights were out and backup generators weren’t working.

Ritter said that when he returned home Tuesday, he was jittery and couldn’t sleep. But he said he realizes that in Southern California, earthquakes are something everyone has to live with and anticipate.

“If we have a big earthquake in Orange County,” he said, “we’re going to see the exact same thing.”

Staff writers Alicia Di Rado, Rene Lynch and Rebecca Trounson contributed to this report.