Earthquake Update

It has been a week and a half since the earthquake and the region is still in chaos. First, the school Jason taught at years ago was miraculously spared. No injuries at the school and no buildings damaged. That is pretty amazing since the town near the school lost 80% of its buildings. The death toll looks to go over 50,000 people and there are over 5 million now homeless. They are walking to the big city about an hour away that has a population of around 10,000,000. Some people are being sent down to our city.

A friend of ours has left his home off the Chinese coast and gone to the area to offer relief. Here is an excerpt of his email to describe the scene:

Madness! It was complete and utter chaos as we entered into Zi gong - about 100 miles south of the epicenter.

People running through the streets screaming, laying on the sidewalks, cars racing by, only to get stuck in the long traffic jams at the highways.

I have never witnessed such pandemonium, chaos and hysteria in my life. I don't have the words to describe what was going on. I was rattled and nervous.

As soon as our bus arrived, there were no mobile communications, our contact was no where to be found. The woman at the bus station had a bed out in the parking lot - all the buildings and skyscrapers were empty! No wonder! all the people were scurrying about in the streets like ants on an ant hill that had just been kicked over 10 times by a naughty boy.

"What's going on?" I asked people.

"an earthquake is coming, an earthquake is coming, we've got to get out of here!" screamed some people.

You could feel the tension and the fear. The "fear” itself was like a "living form", a type of parasite, it was demonic, and ugly, and this "worm" was entering the souls of men and women and trying to literally destroy people.

I was very rattled. I had to stay calm. It was only the strength of God that kept me calm on those streets as the world around us was basically falling apart - it was surreal.

Obviously, this area has been totally changed. it will never be the same. Please pray for China.