Earthquake

At about 3:30 in the morning Saturday, Feb. 27th, I awoke to our bed mildly shaking.  Anders will occasionally have a dream about playing basketball and will kick his legs in his sleep.  That's what I thought was going on, so I kick him to wake him up.  But he was awake.  The shake was getting stronger and Anders exclaimed, "it's an earthquake,"  I ask, "what do we do?"  He replies, "let's go to the kids' room."

Anders continued to give me instruction as we quickly made our way to the bedroom next to ours.  We each lifted one child from their bed and huddled down on the floor in the space between their beds and covered them with our bodies.  Immediately I began praying out loud in the name of Jesus.  Boden continued sleeping, and Addi looked into my eyes and gave me the sweetest smile as if to say, "everything is going to be ok Mommy."  The Lord ministered His peace to us in the midst of extreme chaos.

The movement continued to grow stronger and the noise increased... doors swinging, things falling, car alarms going off, and the sound of "rumbling".  This lasted for 3 minutes... 3 very long minutes!  After the quake ended, our 14 story building continued to sway.  This was a very eery feeling!

We then carry the kids into our room and put them in our bed.  At about that time, our phone rings.  It's our team leader, Trent.  He tells us to come over to their house.  We pack up the diaper bag and a back pack right away and get out.  Our team reunites at the Tomlinson house and everyone's nerves begin to relax as we talk through what had just happened.  We got all the kids relaxed on a bed of blankets in the living room, as the adults sat around the dining room table and prayed.  The Lord ministered His peace to us in the midst of extreme chaos.

Later in the day, Anders and I returned to our apartment to gather some more supplies and assess the damage.  Here's a bit of what we found.

     This counter is on wheels and is usually flush against the wall.

The rug is wet from the water sloshing out of the toilet... and the lid was closed.

Here's what we noticed in the kids' room.  A book shelf fastened to the wall located above Boden's bed is jam packed with books.  Not one book fell off the shelf!  We observed that the screws holding the shelf to the wall were almost completely pushed out of the wall, but the shelf never fell.  The Lord protected us in the midst of the chaos.

Here are a few examples of damage around Temuco. Note that most of our town looks outwardly as if nothing happened, except for the lines at gas stations, pay phones and stores. Damage is centered downtown where there are larger and older buildings and, as far as we know, no buildings completely collapsed.

Thank you all who have been praying!  I hope this blog post shows you how the Lord answered your prayers in protecting us and our team.  At the same time, our gratitude clashes sharply with the fact that many others are not thanking God for answered prayers, but asking him "Why?" and looking for comfort and basic needs. Please continue to pray for the people of Chile who are sleeping in the streets because they no longer have a home, pray for the families who are grieving the death of someone they love, pray for those who are gripped with fear and overwhelmed by the destruction.  Pray for calmness among many who are feeling very desperate. Pray that the hearts of people will be soft and the compassionate love of Jesus Christ will be seen and sink deep into empty hearts.