Reverend Grace & Anesthesiologist Charlie

This is the story of Grace & Charlie & their Burner Yurt, written by Burner Yurts’ founder, Natalie Spilger

On Saturday, April 11th, we received an email from Grace, a Reverend of small Presbyterian congregation. Four days later, she had a 110sf Burner Yurt in her yard in Calabasas, CA.

The email wrote "We received word from our hospital that you are offering your yurts for doctors free of charge. This is a godsend, as we were struggling with what to do during this covid crisis as Charlie is a first responder in the ER and ICU and needs to self isolate." Charlie, Grace's husband, is an anesthesiologist at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, CA. He is a on the team which does all of the COVID calls that the ER cannot handle. And yes, his hospital has COVID patients in the ICU & COVID Ward.

Their concerns are mostly that Charlie "will be exposed to the virus and will increase the chance of passing it on to others." Grace serves in a congregation that has a lot of elderly people, and while they are gathering remotely during this time, their concern for their community is paramount.

When my team was setting up the yurt (very safely), I learned that Grace & Charlie were also parents of twins, & had two older children about 15 months apart. Just like my husband & I (In the photo above, I was 16 weeks pregnant with fraternal twin boys & I already have 2 children roughly 15mo apart). I felt like we were connected & their story could easily be mine.

From Grace, "God brings people together in such mysterious ways, and we are so glad to meet you!! You will be in our prayers for so many things! We are so thankful for what you are providing for us. This opportunity has already brought us so much peace of mind."