If you hadn't already heard, the city of Christchurch was hit with 7.1 magnitude earthquake at 4:35 am last Saturday (September 4th). OUR STORY
Whitney and I were sleeping soundly with wee Henry (our 2-month-old) in the room when we were startled with a feeling that might be described as really bad airplane turbulence, except in your house! I sat up and thought for a couple of seconds and said, "earthquake!" and immediately attempted to make my way down a bouncing hallway towards Lane's room (our two-year-old). Lane was sitting up in bed saying, "it's too loud, daddy!" I snatched her up and made my way back to our room where we waited the quake out in the door-frames. Whitney, clutching baby Henry and still obviously waking up, had suggested we get in the bathtub. I had to reminded her that it was an earthquake, not a tornado :-).
CHRISTCHURCH AFTER THE QUAKE
Amazingly, we had virtually no damage done to our house or our neighborhood. Things were thrown from shelves, pictures had to be put back on walls, drawers had to be shut, and sliding glass doors closed, but nothing was broken - not a single piece of glass! This was also the case with all of our fellow team-mates and rechurch staff members, but many in the city were not so lucky.
Not a single life was lost and there were only two people critically injured, but thousands had their homes and/or businesses destroyed and everyone lost electricity and water for a significant amount of time. Now that the initial shock has worn off, power and water have been restored to 90% of the city, and the damage has mostly been assessed, the cleanup can begin.
Rechurch is helping to organize some relief efforts. Tomorrow we begin by helping a family shovel the silt and mud from their drive and move out of their condemned home. Another group will be joining the Canterbury University student body in a united effort to help cleanup Christchurch.
We appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers. We are truly blessed to have our lives, our health, and a safe place to live after such a disaster. Pray for more opportunities for us to be the hands and feet of Christ in Christchurch.
2 comments:
That's what I was waiting to hear...thank you! Unbelievable...not a single piece of broken glass! "It's too loud, Daddy." She might say the same thing in a tornado. Keep on loving Christchurch!
If you could see spiritual entities, you would have seen angels hovering over the homes of the Rechurch team members at 4:35 am on Sept. 4. Praise God for HIS protection of HIS people.
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