Saturday, August 18, 2007

Damages on Every side: the quake in Peru



If you look carefully, this dear lady on the right is almost stoic in her expression, resigned to the destruction that characterized her home. She stands where her door once stood, looking off at what can only be a memory of her precious few belongings that were buried by Wednesday's quake. She is impervious to the icy wind that bites at her exposed extemities. She is in survival mode.



The young family above stands in the entrance to their house. They lost everything. Everything but their faith. They cling to their life in Christ.

This scene is repeated thirty thousand times all over Ica, Pisco, Chincha, and hundreds of small towns.



Entire communities crumbled under the force of the magnitude 8 earthquake. One community had moved to their location just a few years earlier, having been forced out of their old community by mudslides. Once again they have lost it all: pots and pans were crushed under the load of the collapsing walls. Clothes, buried under mounds of rubble are now useless.

It will take weeks and months to recover from this terrible tragedy. Peruvians have shown themselves to be a resilient people. But this has taken its toll. This has bowed the backs of some of the strongest.

Pray for Peru.

2 comments:

J. Guy Muse said...

Thanks for all these updates. We do continue to hold up the people of Peru in the midst of this natural tragedy.

Kevin, Somewhere in Southern America said...

Guy,

thanks for your continued prayer support. Wayne and I are headed back down there in the morning. there are still a lot of logistics to be worked out. We need to try to get our minds around this thing. Pray hard!