On Friday Shari and Hannah had just left for the women’s conference in Jesús MarÃa when the 7.2 magnitude quake was felt here in Ixtapaluca. It was certainly a good shake, lasting around 2 minutes.
Thankfully, no new damage in our house that we can see, although it did cause one or two temporary leaks in our bathroom.
Then the power went out for a couple of hours, along with cell phone service.
Thankfully, as far as we know no one was killed in the quake, although more homes in the state of Oaxaca (where the epicentre was) were damaged.
About an hour later, an aftershock hit, just slightly felt where we live.
Just before 1am this morning, we felt another aftershock, this one magnitude 5.9. Earthquakes and Aftershocks 4.5+ in the last 7 days (orange from today) Courtesy USGSSo – I could use some sleep, but otherwise everyone is fine here.
That being said, continue to pray for people whose homes have been damaged/destroyed. And also for those who continue to be fearful. It’s high stress when the ground keeps moving, but all the more when you have no Solid Rock to hold onto.
A significant aftershock hit on Saturday (Shari felt it, I didn’t), and another today. We say “aftershock”, but there is even disagreement about which earthquake these are aftershocks of. The fact of the matter is, we know a lot less than you might think when it comes to earthquakes and plate tectonics. Largest quakes/aftershocks of the past week As far as I can tell, there have been aftershocks every day since the quake on the 7th. But here is a map showing just the quakes/aftershocks magnitude 5 and up from the past week (the orange one was from today). (Actually, that red one snuck in while I was capturing the map. It was a 4.7 but it just happened.)
Setting aside Mexico City and area for a moment, can you imagine the strain in the state of Oaxaca, where the earth is moving every day? There are towns which after two and a half weeks have no water yet.
But tension is high here too, as rescue efforts continue. Even if there is little damage from the aftershocks, it still adds to the emotional strain.
The Personal Report Part
Yes, that is a Canada cap!I won’t write a novel and tell you all our adventures yesterday – adventures including off and on power and cell service, muddy roads, and lots of driving. Over lunch time we met with people from a few families, some of which had been affected directly by the quake. One man made a confession of faith – so maybe from an eternal perspective that was the purpose of our whole day!
In the afternoon, with a lot going on, I made the split-second-without-thinking-much (maybe I was too tired to think!) decision to suggest we head up to the town we had visited on Thursday.
To be honest, I only had a vague idea where this town was, but I knew that by a big Roman Catholic chapel there was someone I had met. And I knew that there was a lot of damage in the town.
So we found our way to the town, and to the centre of town, but athough I had recognized some streets, I had no idea where to go from there.
There was a lot of immediate help in that area, so we were talking about going nearby to just help whoever we could find. We talked to a police officer, and he said something along the lines of,“You know, we have lots of help here. But if you go about 5 minutes down the road, they need more help there. Actually – I’ll take you.”
And he drove us right to the block where the person was that I had been looking for, and I got out of the van and walked a few metres to his house.
And they say God doesn’t answer prayer.
You can see the family house above – this was their house and business. It’s a complete loss. Three families are now living in a single room next door.
So I asked this man if he would be willing to walk with us for half an hour to help us find those most in need.
And so he took three of us from the group, and we went on a walking tour, giving people some food and praying with them.
For example, we came across this house (it was a business too, actually), which also is a loss (no, that is not a door on the right!). When we said we were from a Christian church, we found out that he was a Christian too, with a bunch of big Christian guys moving rubble behind the house. We prayed with them, and they enthusiastically and LOUDLY thanked God for His blessings and prayed for those who still did not have salvation. It was quite an experience there in the semi-darkness, with clouds of cement dust in the air! (I’m still coughing… dust was everywhere in this town…)
I got home this morning around 12:30am or so.
A couple of the towns we visited, including this last one, did look like war zones. The bad part is that there were destroyed and semi-destroyed buildings everywhere you looked. But the good part was that there were people working all over the place – trucks moving rubble, people organizing supplies. The Mexican people have been amazing in their response.
But this will require more than an immediate response the few days afterwards.
I want to leave you with the story of one man we met. Below you can see a picture of his two story home, which they now can’t enter. It will soon be torn down. As you might be able to see, all his belongings are outside under the clouds (clouds which will likely become rain, if they haven’t been already).
On the right you can see rough shelters that were just being put up last night, so that they would have a sheltered place to sleep.
This man’s wife just passed away a month ago.
We prayed for him, but in this case, as Romans 8:26 says, “…we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
Today and Next Steps
We had a service this morning, but we were split in 3. The building where we meet has not yet been inspected, so we met in three homes at three locations (we weren’t able to find a place big enough to meet – unless we were willing to pay a large amount of rent.) From what I heard all three mini-churches had a good service. It was an encouragement to be together, praying and singing and hearing from the Lord’s Word. And, of course, hearing more stories from everyone!
This afternoon I went to the city of Puebla to pick up 28,000 evangelistic tracts that have been printed just for earthquake relief. The front of the tract says,”Fear in the face of tragedy”. It talks about the recent quakes, and then goes on to share about the “God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3).
I’ll be shipping those to various churches in our network tomorrow as they continue to bring news of comfort as well as physical aid.
We have a conference this week for missionaries from around the country. We have decided to go ahead with the conference, but to use it not only as a time to “go up for air”, but also to have some times of prayer and meetings to strategize some longer term plans. But it’s going to be difficult for everyone to be here, but not be here. That will be Tuesday to Friday.
And then – well – we’ll take it from there! As I’ve alluded to before, things are changing day by day, and even hour by hour. So it’s more than a full time job to stay up to date with the current needs and what everyone is doing.
Rod will be going to Oaxaca this week, where he has friends, to help there. Depending on what funds are available (you can help here by giving to our community centre fund), and how the situation develops, we will see what direction we go next.
Thank you again for your prayers. God is answering them! People are being helped and encouraged in the face of this tragedy. Let’s keep looking to the Lord.
Pastor MartÃn and the group I went with yesterday.
I just got back from a small town in the State of Mexico. Quite a few of us went from the churches here with supplies, including medications, clothes, water, food, diapers, toilet paper, and so on. I took some video for you.
It was hard to get many pictures to really show you the damage. You could see some walls that had crumbled a bit, but the real damage was inside the houses. Quite a few people in this town had homes that were more or less destroyed on the inside.
The first family I spoke to were sleeping in their car. Their home, which was also their business, was more or less unlivable. You’ll see the outside of one wall at the beginning of the video below, but I didn’t take any pictures of the inside to respect their privacy.
Even parts of the road as we drove in were collapsed, or badly cracked.
We were able to give out the supplies in a fairly organized way. The nice thing was that the people of the town were already gathered, and we actually had time to talk to many of them.
So we tried to give some encouragement, pray with people, share the gospel, give out some tracts and Bibles, along with the other items. People were very open to talking – which is a bit unusual when a bunch of strangers show up in a small town around here.
Pray for these people, and so many like them, who have lost so much. Towns like this are far from the resources that we have closer to us. It will take them a long time to rebuild.
If you would like to help, you can give through this link to help us directly. You can also keep praying. Thanks so much to those of have contacted us with your encouragement.
The power just came on, about 16 hours after yesterday’s earthquake. So other than my quick post on Twitter and Facebook right afterwards, this is the first chance I’ve had to connect. In fact, most of you have probably seen more about the quake than we have, although we have been listening to the radio.
As I mentioned on Facebook, we had some damage, although not much. Furniture was moved around, and a few things broke. We haven’t had power until now, precious little cell service, and have very little water now. Without power, we weren’t sure we were able to clean up all the broken glass yesterday, but hopefully we can be more thorough today.
I can write more later, but let me just mention a couple important things.
First, we still haven’t heard about some people from our churches here. Most are accounted for, and fine. Just a few minutes ago I heard from someone from our church in Las Palmas – they were unable to locate their kids for a while, but they are all fine.
However, last I heard there were still some missing from one of the other churches. It’s not surprising, considering that phones have been down and traffic was a little crazy yesterday. But do keep praying.
As you’ve seen in the news, there is quite a bit of damage in the city and quite a few dead, although we are thankful the number is so low. But again, we will all be hearing more today.
Many of you will have the heart that we have on this matter – that it reminds us again of God’s power, and the fact that we will soon be face to face with Him. So you can also pray for the believers here, as they share with many who have either lost loved ones, or are again reminded of the brevity of life.
Thanks for all who have been praying.
The map below shows the big quake we just had, as well as aftershocks from the last week of the previous quake.
When the National Gallery of Canada invited Dr. Jordan B. Peterson to speak, they had no idea the controversy they would be in. Since the invitation, Dr. Peterson has been criticized for refusing to use “genderless pronouns” (such as zie, tey, or ey instead of he or she) when talking to his students.
Dr. Peterson (who, in all the news articles I read, is mysteriously no longer called “Dr.” at all…), psychology professor at the University of Toronto, is currently scheduled to speak on the Psychology of Creativity next week.
An article from CBC news quoted a LGBTQ advocate, Amanda Jette Knox. Speaking out against Peterson’s appearance at the National Gallery, she made this astonishing statement,”Art itself has always been, historically, a safe space …”
Really? ART? Now maybe she was trying to say that art has always been a “place” where there is freedom of speech – at least, artists have always pushed to be free. But that can’t be it – since she’s advocating quelling someone’s freedom of speech. So what on earth did she mean?
Art is NOT a “safe space”. Art is the place for social criticism, for revolution, for praise and for condemnation. It’s “bad art” that tends to be “safe” – isn’t it?
Freedom and care for one another should certainly be foundations of Canadian society. But if Canada is going to be a place where our places of learning are “safe” from anyone who disagrees – and where our “art” is now and “historically” a “safe space” – where in the world are we allowed to think and disagree and push for justice and change in society?
Sorry – art isn’t and never has been a “safe space”.
This is a little video all about the temporary “holy door” at the basilica in Mexico City.
It’s really hard to give a good explanation off the cuff, though I gave it a shot. The basic idea is that, according to current Roman Catholic belief, going through this door can be a part of helping you avoid some of the punishment that you deserve for sin.
I talk here more about “official” Roman Catholic doctrine, but there are a thousand shades of belief even here in Mexico.
You can see the family house above – this was their house and business. It’s a complete loss. Three families are now living in a single room next door.
For example, we came across this house (it was a business too, actually), which also is a loss (no, that is not a door on the right!). When we said we were from a Christian church, we found out that he was a Christian too, with a bunch of big Christian guys moving rubble behind the house. We prayed with them, and they enthusiastically and LOUDLY thanked God for His blessings and prayed for those who still did not have salvation. It was quite an experience there in the semi-darkness, with clouds of cement dust in the air! (I’m still coughing… dust was everywhere in this town…)
On the right you can see rough shelters that were just being put up last night, so that they would have a sheltered place to sleep.
This afternoon I went to the city of Puebla to pick up 28,000 evangelistic tracts that have been printed just for earthquake relief. The front of the tract says,”Fear in the face of tragedy”. It talks about the recent quakes, and then goes on to share about the “God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3).
It was hard to get many pictures to really show you the damage. You could see some walls that had crumbled a bit, but the real damage was inside the houses. Quite a few people in this town had homes that were more or less destroyed on the inside.
