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Chile Updated information from companion Synod

 

The following note was added as a comment to the first Chile Earthquake post.  I thought it might be missed as a comment, so am copying here.

                           Peace,  Dan.  (Daniel Rift, ELCA World Hunger and Diaster Appeal) 

Note from Bill Gafkjen on February 27th, 2010 at 6:24 pm

I am Assistant to the Bishop in the Indiana-Kentucky Synod, ELCA, with responsibility for our companion relationship with the IELCH (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile). Today, one of the Spanish-speaking members of our Global Mission Committee spoke with a son of Pastora Gloria Rojas, Presiding Pastor of the IELCH who lives in Santiago. Cell phones have not been working in much of the earthquake area; interestingly many land lines have been fine. Pastora Gloria has been able to connect with most pastors of the IELCH and reports that they are without injury, including Pastor Oscar Sanhueza, who serves in Concepcion, near the earthquake epicenter. We pray for the people of EPES, the IELCH, and Chile as they seek to stand on the firm foundation of God’s gracious promise of resurrection and new life.

Chile Earthquake news update

 

Chile Earthquake –

updated 2/27,  6 pm Eastern Time:

Check out the update from Lutheran News Service at:

http://www.elca.org/News/Releases.asp?a=4461

Material you might want for Sunday morning has now been posted at

www.elca.org/disaster

Thank you for the prayers and continued concerns for Chile.

Dan.

Chile Earthquake

Unbelievable to wake up this morning to the news of the Earthquake the impending possibilities of impact from a tsunami.   As with Haiti and so many other situations, the ELCA has a connection to what is happening.  We have two dynamic ways through which we (ELCA) have been present in Chile, both as church and as community organization.

Our Global Mission folks (both in the churchwide office and in the region) have been connecting through-out the morning with folks in Chile, and in Peru (where the church has been actively supporting those who are being evacuated due to the Tsunami warning).

More information will soon be posted at www.elca.org/disaster.

Information on how one can give to help in this response will be at that web link as well.

Prayers…. in addition to your fervent prayers for all whose live have been shaken by this quake, and the family of those who have been lost,  please also pray specifically for the following:
The partner organization of the ELCA who works in providing access to health services, the Popular Education in Health Foundation (Educacion Popular en Salud – EPES), reports that they have been unable to reach five of their workers in the earthquake area.

Thanks,  Dan.

Dan Rift, Director ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal

And then came the rain…

Wednesday night, Haiti’s capital experienced its heaviest rainfall since the earthquake, a soaking downpour that lasted for several hours. The storm, the second this week, foreshadowed things to come when the rainy season sets in next month.
 
“It has rained before, but not so hard and so long,” said Marie Lucie Osias, 37, who lives in a makeshift shelter in the Delmas 40-B encampment in Petionville, with her 10-year-old son. Her other three children died in the quake.  “Our clothes got wet, everything got wet. I just tried to keep the water out the best I could,” she said. Whenever water started to pool in the tarp that serves as her roof, she would push it up with a stick and try to make sure it ran off to the outside instead of coming in.
 

Marie Lucie Osias (L), lives with her son (R), the lone earthquake survivor among her four children, in a makeshift shelter. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst/LWR/ACT Alliance)

Shelter is still a major concern in Haiti; the United nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported for the fifth consecutive week that shelter is one of the most urgent priorities facing displaced communities.  OCHA estimates that only 24 percent of the 1.3 million people in need of shelter have received tarps or tents.
 
ELCA Disaster Response is working to provide much needed shelter to people like Marie.  The Lutheran World Federation is hard at work to provide shelter materials like tarps and rope while transitional shelters are being constructed.  In the future, sturdier shelters will be needed as families prepare to cope with the annual hurricane season.  ELCA Disaster Response has also provided funds for the purchase and shipping of 12,000 tarps through Lutheran World Relief to be distributed in Haiti by Church World Service and the Lutheran World Federation. 
 

Click here to read the full article on shelter needs from the ACT Alliance.

Prayers & Hymns in Haiti

People hold candles during a mass in the shadows of the ruins of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which was devastated in a January 12 earthquake. Paul Jeffrey ACT Alliance

 

 

 

It has been one month of suffering since the earthquake in Haiti. In Port-au-Prince and other parts of Haiti, individuals and families affected commemorated the tragedy this weekend. In churches and public spaces tens and tens of thousands gathered to share their grief, prayers and hope for days ahead.  ELCA Disaster Response, through the ACT Alliance, is supporting many of these families that gathered recently in hymn and prayer. 

 

I invite you to view a slide-show of this at: Prayers & Hymns in Haiti

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pastor Lauvanus Returns to Haiti

Haitians, like this boy, scavenge amidst the rubble for something of value in the devastated center of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which was ravaged by a January 12 earthquake. Photo by Paul Jeffrey/ACT Alliance.

I want to share with you a letter received from Pastor Joseph Livenson Lauvanus, the President of the Lutheran Church in Haiti.  On January 20th, the ELCA formalized our relationship with the church in Haiti, showing greater solidarity and commitment to accompany this small church as it responds to the needs of its community in the wake of this national disaster. 

Pr. Lauvanus was in Florida when the earthquake happened but on January 29th, with the assistance of ELCA Disaster Response, he flew to the Dominican Republic, where he then traveled via a UN Humanitarian Relief Convoy back to Haiti.  He is currently staying on the LWF compound.

This letter describs his impressions after returning to his homeland after the disaster. Please keep Pr. Lauvanus in your prayers.

 

Dear friends,

I reach Haiti yesterday afternoon. It was time for me to finally see things for myself for me not to live in denial anymore. From the DR to the LWF I did not see much of what was going on. I just see a few demolished buildings. This morning I went to Port-au-Prince and from there to Carrefour, and it is the first time in my entire life I’ve seen so much destructions.   Read More…