Day 26

We are finally home!
We arrived at the boat dock in Puerto Montt at 4pm as instructed.  Actually loaded the car at 7 and went up to our room.  Boat left at 10pm only one hour late.
Let's get this straight, this ain't the Love Boat.  The RO RO Puerto Eden is an aging truck ferry that also carries passengers.  But for us the $500 to carry us and our car was worth it as the only alternative is to drive 2 days through Argentina.
The good:  VERY calm seas.  Even the Gulf of Corcovado had only 2 foot long swells.  This area is known for it's common 20-30 foot seas.  We must have seen over 20 whales in the Gulf.  Either Fin or Blue, I'm not sure which.  And, of course, we saw lots of penguins.
The bad:  Old, shaky, and noisy boat.  Lots of steep stairs to get anywhere, not a great place to carry your luggage.
The ugly:  Mouse droppings everywhere.  We didn't pay the $6 for lunch and ate an MRE instead.
We arrived at Chacabuco 6:30 pm and got off the boat around 8.  Made it home a half-hour later.
House is in fine shape, just like we left it but with taller grass and a full rain gauge.
Boy, it's good to be back.

Day 24

We are now in Puerto Montt.  The ferry leaves this evening at 9 or so but we have to be there with the car at 4.

We made it up to see our Mapuche friends, that was cool.
It had rained heavily during the night and when we arrived at the lower church no one was there.  We headed up the road (used to just be a horse trail) and met some folks we know on the way.  Rosamel about fell off his bike when he saw us.  We all decided to head to the upper church together so we continued up the road with 5 people in the back seat and one on the back bumper.

We made it to the base of the steep trail that leads to the upper church.  Too slick to continue so we climb the Very steep trail to church.  Talk about aerobic workouts!
Of course I had to preach and after we headed back down to the lower church where I had to preach again.  Didn't matter that Cristobal had just finished preaching.
Then we all went to the kitchen and sat around drinking Mate.  They fixed some food and did the Mapuche Guest of Honor* thing with us.  Later we drove Cristobal and Rosamel to Regoilil to do a little business.  Got back and went to Cristobals house where they did the MGH* thing again.

We left that evening and we made it to Puerto Montt and have been finally able to rest a little.
We hope to make it home tomorrow evening sometime after 9.

*Mapuche Guest of Honor
Where they sit you at a special spot (usually the only table) give you a huge portion or all of the food and sit and watch you eat.  No, you never get used to it.

Day 20

Yesterday Rhonda and I went to Linares where we presented a report to the executive presbytery.
We all discussed what needs to be done now and how best to accomplish it.  There remains much to do but it looks like the urgent need for our presence is over.

Today we will start the long journey home!

We do have one stop along the way though.  Our Mapuche friends have continued to call us when they come down out of the mountains.  Most calls include the question as to when we'll come see them again.  I usually say when we're in the area.  Well, this is about as close to "in the area" as we're likely to get so we plan to make a 2 day detour to go see them.  We hope to arrive there Sunday morning just about time church starts, as there is no communication up there they have no idea we're coming.  Should be interesting.

I'll let you know what happens when I can.

Yesterday morning pastor David prayed with total sincerity thanking the Lord for allowing all of us to survive another night.

Day 18

We are back in Concepcion for a couple days.  I have been asked to give a report of what we've seen and learned in the Cauquenes area to the Executive Presbytery tomorrow.  We're at Pastor Pedro Contreras' house and are able to get online today.  I have no idea when we'll be able to connect again as we may be on the road.  It is possible that after the meeting we will be able to head back to Aysen.

The last couple days we visited small towns North of Cauquenes and then went to Constitucion.  Again, the small towns of mostly adobe construction were devastated.  In one town of 70 houses only 4 survived.  We then visited some houses out of town and were told that we were the first people to check on them.  This was 18 days after the earthquake.

The town of Constutucion (pop 55-60k) is in real bad shape.  The whole downtown area is like being in one of those WWII films of Europe.  The ones where everything is trashed and they just bulldoze a path through the rubble.  After the huge quake there was a huge tsunami.  They talk of hundreds dead in this town alone.

This is how many houses in the country ended up

We gave out what food we had

Entire streets in Constitucion were wiped out

This man (a Christian) opened his business in his destroyed home

There were some caskets in the street.  We don't know where they came from.

We saw large fishing boats 3 miles upriver.

Day 15

I am able to connect to the internet for a little bit.  We are in Cauquenes staying at the church.  Pastors family, 2 other families, and us are sleeping in the sanctuary.  Yesterday, today, and tomorrow we are surveying the region and seeing to the urgent needs of the people.  The destruction here is very bad and we will give a report in a few days to the A/G executive Presbetry.  Electric is still unstable with an almost nation wide outage yesterday and local one today.  I'll try to upload a few pictures:

Store next door to the church

Down the street from the church

As people have no where to go many are making shelters out of what is available.

What the tsunami touched it destroyed

Two weeks ago this was a thriving coastal town

Day 13

Today we traveled to Chillan and got some supplies.  Tomorrow we plan to head back to Cauquenes, drop off supplies, and head to the coast to do survey.  Communication is still spotty over there so we may be out of touch a few days.  I'll update if I am able.

Day 11

Today we traveled north to Cauquenes to see how the church fared.  There were three 6 plus earthquakes during the last hour of driving.  It was a surprise to us because we were driving on a bumpy road and never felt a thing. 

The destruction we saw today was immense:  ceramic roof tiles in piles of rubble, adobe bricks that became dirt and straw again, crooked, cracked, and crumpled walls everywhere.  Pastor took us to the house where of one of the members lived.  It is a miracle he escaped.  All that is left is a pile of rubble.

We visited a family that lives out in the country a few miles from town.  Their house looked like it survived from the outside.  But inside it was obvious that it was about to fall apart.  The whole family is living in a pole barn with a dirt floor where they store their truck.  It is open so they were closing it in to use as a house.  A tour of their home was especially unnerving after the three quakes a few hours earlier.  Their case was very typical; houses that look fine from the outside are cracked and weakened inside.  A small tremor could bring them down.

We looked at 3 towns in all, the first is about 40% destroyed, Cauquenes (60k population) is 50%-70% uninhabitable, and the small town of Coronel (2500 pop) is 98% uninhabitable.  Many buildings that are still standing will have to be torn down.

We are going to try to raise some funds to buy tarps or plastic so people will have something to put over them.  Winter is coming on quickly and cold and rain is on the way.  We are very concerned for the conditions that many thousands of people find themselves in.

Day 10

It's been 10 days since Rhonda and I left Aysen to come to Concepcion.  We have no idea as to when we'll return, we'll just see how things develop.  We have to weigh the need and what resources we have to work with.

Yesterday the team we picked up in Bariloche left to return to the US.  Sunday I  went to the airport here (now able to receive a few flights) and picked up missionary Rick Ellis.  He was home for deputation and returned for a few weeks to help with this disaster.

Folks have been asking about our living conditions, I guess I ought to add a little about that.  When we arrived a lady in Rick's church let us stay in an apartment building she has.  We were able to use a nice apartment on the 6th floor and it did have electric and even internet!  We didn't have an  elevator, water, or gas but since we came prepared to camp if needed it wasn't all that bad.  Yesterday we moved into Rick's house where we have lights and maybe gas.  We have been able to eat.  Lots of starch and little protein but have been making it ok.  We needed to lose a little weight anyway!

The food situation continues to be difficult for many many people.  Pastor Reuben told us yesterday that many families in his area are down to one meal a day.  It is good to be able to help by giving them some food and supplies!

One story that stands out about food was on Friday.  We came into town and drove up to Chiguyante to visit pastor Victor (age 72).  We were surprised to see him standing at his gate and he looked very surprised to see a 4runner and pickup loaded with supplies pull up as well.  A little later he told us what was going on.  That day they had completely run out of food and his wife had sent him out to look for something to eat.  With tears in his eyes he told us he had looked and  had been unable to find anything and had just returned home empty handed when we pulled up.  More than once we've visited a pastor and been told that they had just ran out of food.

Today we are supposed to get another truck in and we'll deliver it.  I don't know where we'll get supplies after today.

Update

More long days.  Seems we're lucky to get to bed before midnight.
Traffic has become horrible.  Gas is now easier to get and it seems everyone is out and trying to get things done before curfew.  Add some bad bottlenecks on the roads, no traffic police, and a bunch of non-functioning traffic signals and you have a recipe for traffic chaos.
We've seen a lot of destruction these last 5 days but nothing has compared to what we witnessed yesterday in the town of Dichato.  The town is closer to the epicenter than Concepcion and the quake was followed by a large tsunami.  Locals told us it reached 20 meters high.  I'll enclose some photos but they just don't do justice to the smell, desperation, silence, and shock that we witnessed there.

On the beach.  All that is left of this house is part of the roof with an antenna still attached.

Houses without a good foundation were simply swept away.

A view down what was a street.

Looking down another street.

There are literally houses sitting on houses.

Many of the fishing boats were sunk or ruined.

This large fishing boat ended up close to 2 miles from the sea.

Concepcion moved 10 feet

Got this from CNN today:
The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked the west coast of Chile last month was violent enough to move the city of Concepcion at least 10 feet to the west and the capital, Santiago, about 11 inches to the west-southwest...


I well believe this after seeing the damage in the area.  Above is a photo I took today of a railroad track we crossed on the way to deliver food to a church in Hualqui.

Sunday

I didn't get to make a post yesterday, we left early and got in late exhausted.  We drove down the the town of Arauco to visit the churches there.  Both churches have damage and one may have to have a whole wall replaced.  We then drove to Lota and returned to visit 3 more churches in Concepcion.  We left food and supplies in all 5 places.  We are constantly touched by the gratefulness of the people we are able to help.  I'll enclose some pictures to help give you an idea of what we saw.

Driving can be quite a challenge, we had to carefully navigate our way through this broken area.

This section of road had fallen in near Lota.  Note the car at the bottom.

Many people are staying where they can.  We were at one place where 40 people were sharing one house, in this photo 10 families are staying at the church.  They made a small oven (on left) and are baking bread.

In Arauco most of the population is living in the hills.  Fear of more tsunamis has made them prefer to live in what shelters they can find or make than live in the insecurity of their homes.  We went to one camp where over 2000 people were living.

At each church we try to leave what food and supplies we have.  We will need to get much more and are hoping enough funds come in to enable us to meed this tremendous need.

Water continues to be a problem.  People line up to get what water they can, be it a fire hydrant that still has a little, an old well, or whatever.  We handed out what filters we had and hope to get some more in as soon as we are able

One thing has been constant, people have been very grateful for the help they've received!  

Many of the lines for gas have been over a mile long.  Yesterday we were trying to get back to where we keep supplies and encountered the worst traffic jam I've ever seen.  Trying to navigate around and through that was near nightmarish.  People were angry, frustrated, and even fighting.  We made it past one section and were cutting around back when I spotted a gas station with one car at the pump.  I thought it was worth a try and pulled up.  I asked the attendant if they had gas and he told me yes and we could get as much as we wanted!  We filled both the car and truck in just minutes!  Not one block from there was another station with a line at least a half mile long and hundreds and hundreds of motorists in a huge traffic jam.

Friday

Today we went around visiting more churches and families.  We found one home where over 40 people were living.  We went to Talcahuano to see if and when containers of help might be able to arrive.
While we were out it was obvious that life was totally changed for most people here.  Driving was chaotic with people walking, on bikes, driving, army, police, fire trucks and ambulances all sharing very rough roads with very few traffic lights working.  We also saw lines.  Lines everywhere, lines for water, for food, and like the one below for gas.  This line stretched for close to a mile.  People are spending their day in a line to get something they need.

Not all houses and buildings are damaged but many are to one degree or another.  Some look fine from the outside and are torn up inside.  Some have cosmetic damage and others have to be abandoned at once.  The church we visited in Talcahuano has cracks and one wall leaning.  We will have to get an engineer to tell us if it can be saved or not.  The photo below is of a street we walked down to get to city hall.  City hall in Talcahuano had to be abandoned at once.

We won't know when we can get a container in for a couple days.  There are 2 ports here, one is shut down for a long time and they are checking the other.  We will try to get supplies from the US to this port as soon as it looks like the port will be usable.  The photo below is of the bay and you can see the tsunami damage, boats on dry land, containers in the water, one fishing boat sunk.  We saw a quite a number of boats and large ships on dry land and capsized in the water.

It does look like we will need to raise some money to continue helping out here.  The need is great and help is urgently needed now and will be needed for some time to come.  If you'd like to help please contact me or use the 'donation' link on the right of the page.

Steve

Concepcion

We finally arrived in Concepcion after 4 days of travel.  We did have to take some long detours due to bridges being down.  The road was messed up in places and there are lots of small rock and land slides along the sides of the roads.
In Temuco we met up with pastor Juan Mella and we went to a store and spend a couple thousand dollars on food and supplies to take in with us.  We packed both vehicles and made it to Concepcion in the late afternoon.
Once here we met with pastor Pedro Contreras and we waited in a line at the military base for over an hour but managed to get a pass so we could be out after curfew which is from 6PM to noon.
We then went to the town of Chiguayante.  The pastor and family and parsonage are fine.  The church building has suffered serious damage.  They are exists a real possibility that it will have to be demolished.  Next we went to a church in central Concepcion.  Again, the pastoral family is fine and the church building came through in good shape.  The parsonage is a total loss and we were surprised that no one died there.
We are experiencing numerous strong aftershocks, the last being a few minutes ago that was 6.8 on Richter.
I'm surprised that we still have lights and internet!
I'll post more as I'm able

Update

First we want you to know how much we appreciate your prayers and support.  I believe it has already made a big difference.
We are fine and in Temuco right now.  After 2 days of driving we made it to Bariloche, Argentina and picked up fellow missionary Mike Files and 2 members of Convoy of Hope.  We then crossed the Andes and made it to Temuco yesterday evening.
This morning we plan on spending several thousand dollars to buy food and supplies to bring in with us.
So far we haven't seen all that much damage other than some overpasses down and a little road damage.  Temuco has most of it's power back as well.
Fuel might be a problem, gas stations are rationing what they have and many are out completely.
I'll post this right now and add more if I am able.
Steve

Travel

After 4 trips to the port this morning I found out the ferry is completly full.  Looks like we will have to make the long drive through Argentina.
We might be out of touch for a while, I'll do an update when I can.