Earthquake Relief in Chincha, Peru

We just finished an incredible week of ministry in Chincha.  We cleaned up rubble in Pastor Desi’s church and Compassion project compound from his house and classrooms.  Then we went to a baby church from this church’s pastor’s home and did a bunch of tearing down walls, saving adobe bricks, and removing mountains of rubble.  Some neighbors came and helped, also.  After we finished with Pastor Nestor’s home, we helped his neighbors on either side of him and then the group went out into the neighborhood doing some evangelism.  Several people responded positively to the gospel and several relationships were started.  The next day the team went to one of the neighbor’s home that helped with Pastor Nestor’s and did the same kind of thing there.  Afterwards the team went out to visit the same people they met the first day they went into the neighborhood and then afterwards they played volleyball with folks in the neighborhood.  The people laughed, played hard, had fun and wanted to play game after game.  After dinner that night, we came back for a church service.  It was the second service we’d attended there in a neighbor’s home.  The place had over twice as many people as the first day.  Working on the homes, talking with the people and buying bibles and blankets for them really made a difference with their willingness to listen and check out the church.  The church had only met 3 times before.  Robert preached at both the services we attended there and at both services at Pastor Desi’s on the two Sundays we were there.  Each time he knew about preaching about 5 minutes before hand except the last time when he heard about it when the preacher invited him to come up during the service. 

While we were walking back to Pastor Nestor’s house to play volleyball, people were asking us to help them.  One woman’s son’s glasses broke in the earthquake.  She said he would go blind if he didn’t get some help.  Robert and our translator Dana went with the mom and son to a local optometrist.  He indeed had eyes in very bad shape.  It’ll take 3 different sets of glasses to get his eyes to the strength he needs his glasses.  The doctor said he would have lost his sight totally.  It was good to be able to help and there’s a good chance we’ll be involved with the other 2 sets of glasses, too.  Other people came up and asked us to pray for them.  Two older daughters asked us to come with them to pray for their father who looks like he was paralyzed on one side of his body.  He was maybe in his late 30s or 40s and was working at a recycling (Peruvian style) area.  One of the men on the team prayed for him as he and I laid hands on him.  It was beautiful to see the daughter’s hope and faith that they’d bring us all the way to pray for him.  The folks in the area said that we brought hope and light to the neighborhood.  What a wonderful privilege!!!!!!!

We visited another area that was hit even harder than the area we were in.  It was closer to the sea and the homes literally sank about 3-4 feet into the ground.  The government won’t let the people rebuild there.  We visited folks and heard their stories.  One 82 year old woman comes there every day to sit and look at where her house is just a big pile of rubble.  She says she misses her home.  Thankfully she’s able to stay with her son about 15 minutes away.  We asked how we could help and she said that many of her family have moved in with her son and they need more blankets.  We got the address and brought back 3 heavy llama wool blankets and some rice.  Another man talked about how dark warm water started coming up from under the ground before the earthquake started.  People were bailing water out of their homes.  Suddenly the earthquake happened and they all ran out of their community.  A jail was close by and a wall fell down and all 400 inmates escaped.  The man we were talking to said he was running with a baby in each arm and an inmate grabbed a baby and helped them get to a safer area.  We asked more people how we could help and they said they could use food most.  We bought four 110 pound bags of rice and brought them back to the area.  Enroute, we poured the rice into smaller bags so we could hand it out to more people.  After we handed out most of it in one area, we were leaving and folks were running along side asking for rice. We handed out the last of the bags as our driver was leaving.  It was all an amazing experience to us.  There’s nothing so dramatic as being there to actually see it and incredible to talk to the people who lived through it all.

On the way home, after a 3 hour bus trip, as Robert was getting ready to get off the bus, he discovered someone stole his camera.  His expensive camera he bought right before we came to Peru.  He was bummed as were the rest of us.  He walked the several long blocks home with a couple others on the team while the rest of us took a taxi with all the baggage.  When he got home he said that it didn’t hurt as much as when he lost his little camera in 2004 in the Andean highlands and that God was really teaching him about holding our stuff lightly.  He said that God had his good purpose in all of it and knew God would provide him another camera if he wanted him to have one.  Kelsey and Ricky looked at each other amazed and I was very proud of him and pleased how the Lord’s worked in his life.