Chile Update

Chile was impacted by a large earthquake on Saturday 27 February – with the epicenter a few hundred kilometres south west of Santiago.

All of the CMS missionaries in Chile have been accounted for and are well. They will no doubt recount their individual experiences over time.

Update from the Charles 3/3/2010

Dear Friends,

Thanks for your prayers and concern. We are all OK, but a bit shaken (so to speak!). We have lost nothing of value but gained a deeper understanding of the power of our great God and what it means to fear him.

Here are some brief notes. We'll try to put something more considered together when we get back to normality.

So far all of the CEP students are OK, but the parents of a part time student live almost right at the epicentre and I heard today that they are OK, but lost everything (I understand their house got washed away in the mini tsunami).

Yours in Christ,

Michael, Jo, Sam, Caleb, Emma and Lola

Update from the Sheads 2/3/2010

Dear friends,

Thank you for upholding us in your prayers, and for the many messages we have received. Praise God that we are all safe and unharmed in the earthquake. It was a terrifying experience, and for about 40 minutes we were trapped inside our apartment because the lock had jammed. The security men from our building had to kick in the door to get us out.

We have been very well cared for here by our Chilean friends. The Bishop and his wife invited us to stay with them, despite being without electricity themselves. We returned to our apartment late Sunday (which happened to be Lachlan's birthday!), with electricity and running water. The phone and internet were also restored late that evening. Amazingly, despite the number of things that fell off our shelves, not much was broken.

We are feeling very tired and emotionally drained. The children have coped very well, all things considered. So far we haven't heard that anybody we know has been hurt. Our part of town is functioning well, the roads are fine and supermarkets are open, although stocks of some staples are starting to run low.

We are so thankful for God's kindness to us - our situation could have been so much worse! All six of us had been sick with a stomach bug during the week leading up to the earthquake, so even the timing of our sickness was good. We are still not 100%, but certainly improving.

Classes at the CEP will resume tomorrow (Tuesday). Stephen begins teaching four courses this week: Biblical Theology, Psalms, James, and Pastoral Ministry. School was supposed to start on March 1 but it has been postponed until March 8, so the children have an extra week of holidays.

Some things you can be praying for:

• Praise God for his kindness in keeping us safe
• Pray for the many people who are suffering, that in their distress they will turn to the Lord and find comfort and salvation in Him
• Pray for the government of Chile to manage the relief effort well
• Pray for our brothers and sisters in the churches in Concepción, where the damage has been much worse
• Pray that Christians will show sacrificial love to those in need and hold out the hope that only Jesus provides
• Pray for the CEP students, that they will be all the more motivated to know God better and make Him known
• Pray that we might have opportunities to share our hope in Christ with our friends and neighbours.

Your brother and sister in Christ,
Stephen and Rebecca, with Ben, Lachlan, Tristan and Liliana.

Update on NSW missionaries serving in Chile 2/3/2010

Tim and Sally Swan are currently in Sydney on deputation, but have been in contact with fellow NSW missionary families the Charles and the Sheads:

“Both families are well but very traumatised, after living through 3 long minutes of terrifying shaking in their tall apartment blocks, and having to escape their units through dark stairwells. Both families subsequently moved to stay with friends as their apartments were without water and other services.

The premises of the Centre for Pastoral Studies are apparently undamaged. The terror continues on through regular aftershocks, many over 7 on the Richter scale. The Anglican Church has three congregations in the devastated city of Concepcion, where it seems all members are accounted for, but have suffered significant damage to property.

Please pray for our missionaries and for the people of Chile, that the Lord will comfort them in their trauma and bring peace to their hearts.”

Update from Frances Cook 28/2/2010

"It is hard to believe that the earthquake was only yesterday. It has been a long 40 hours. Though probably not as long as the over two minutes of the earthquake. It was 8.0 on richter scale in Santiago. I am stunned by and grateful for how little damage there is in my apartment. One tiny book fell from my bookshelf and my untidy office got a lot more untidy!

It was this building's first earthquake and it did very well indeed. How any structure can stand up to two minutes of that is beyond me and I take my hat off to the engineers.

Here close to the ground, it was as though the whole building was being dragged quickly over an extremely bumpy road, with no tyres! We were treated extremely kindly last night with a lack of significant aftershocks and so were able to sleep well. There have been many small ones and the first significant one today was at 8.30 am. They will go on for ages and we can expect a "seismic" year ahead. The quake was at 3.30am here.

After our introductory intensive week in CEP last week, tomorrow was to be first day of classes, but the metro is not fully functional so we have told them to stay home tomorrow and hope to begin on Tuesday morning. All our students are accounted for bar one, Alejandro Merino, by which I mean simply that we have not been able to contact him.

He lives near a chemicals factory that was on fire, so they may have been evacuated. The CEP itself came out unscathed, as we were informed by students who live in the flat next door.

It was discovered that two beach towns were wiped out, presumably very soon after the quake, with the death toll dramatically increasing."

Please pray for the many people affected by the earthquake in Chile, and especially Christian brothers and sisters who have survived the quake around the Concepción and Temuco area.

Continue to pray for the CMS missionaries as they take stock of the situation, and cope with the many aftershocks.

Additional news about Chile can be found on sydneyanglicans.net.