Journey to the Epicenter, Day Two

Saltos del Mar and Constitucion
Saltos del Mar
The last trip, the guys had talked to a woman named Mercedez, so Bekii and I went up to her partially damaged home to visit her. Her husband was busy working at repairing their porch and she was handing him tools and boards as needed. When we asked if she's like to share her story, she got a weary look on her face and told us that she'd said it so many times. “Don't ask me about the wave”. We asked if she'd like us to pray for her, and that too was waved away. What she did need, she said, is a mattress; they'd been sleeping on the floor since the tsunami drenched their bed.
Along the road to Constitucion
Stopping for some snacks at a small store, we got to talking with the clerk/owner Aydee Ermilia Espinosa Salazar. We asked her about that night and she said, “We didn't hear the ocean, so we knew something was wrong; it was pulling out and building up”. She apologized for the scarcity of goods in her store saying, “No trucks have arrived since the catastrophe”. She recounted an amazing story of how God provided transportation for her to travel to her son in Concepcion after the quake, to make sure that he was okay. “God is always with me”, she said through tears, and we prayed together she gripped our hands tight. She blessed us on our journey and thanked us, and with big hugs we left, thankful to have met such a wonderful lady.

Constitucion
House after house, business after business, if not flattened into a pile of rubble, was spliced with ominous cracks through the adobe and stucco. Piles on either side of the street spoke of the plowing which opened up the way for traffic, the only improvement since the earthquake and tsunami two weeks earlier. As we picked our way through the streets, a woman greeted us. She looked to be in her sixties and bore the cap of a chemotherapy patient. Her name was Yasmine Najle and she gestured to the collapsed building in front of us and said, “And that's my home”.
“I was visiting down the street when it happened. My mom, eighty-two years of age, had stayed with my three year-old grandaughter. Everyone knows my mother on this street, but no one recognized her that night as she fled her home, hunched over my grandaughter. But they were saved, because God is mighty”.
She wept freely as she spoke to us; showing us her mother's home to the back of the property and where they escaped. She told us of a baby girl down the block who died. “I've had four cancers. Why didn't God take me instead? I'm strong. And this has made me stronger yet”. We prayed together, affirming God's purpose for her life, his love and caring for her. It struck us as indicative of her character when she walked to a trash can to dispose of her tissue (there was garbage and wreckage all around us!). We asked if we could take her photo in front of her ruined home. Smiling bravely she whipped off her cap and stood proudly bald for her photo, as if to say I survived cancer, I can survive this!
-We walked further down the road to where a young woman was working at organizing the remains of her family's store. María Jesús told us that her family had lost their home by the river when the waves came through. She was working to organize the notebooks and paper items that survived the quake's violence. Eyeing the broken walls (adobe construction) and the half-drooping roof, I asked if she was afraid to be working in the store; “No! I'm very relaxed. I think the worst has passed”. Quite a brave girl! We prayed for her, asking the Lord's blessing and protection over her and her family's business. “Yeah,” she said, “what next to nothing remained was stolen”.
-Juan Emilio Arraya called to us from his ruined home. Swallowing our fear at entering the structure which was partially collapsed and entirely unstable, we followed him in to hear his story.
With a flat voice he waved towards various rubble-filled rooms, "That was our kitchen, our bathroom, my daughter's room.." The adobe walls were cracked with entire sections missing. Framed walls bulged at impossible angles and we both mentally planned an escape route if an aftershock hit while talking to Juan.
Living in this home for thirty-three years, Juan raised three children here, taking pride in improvements he had made over time. When the quake hit he said, "I believed I was going to die". Just next door to him three people had perished; the father embracing his wife, who was embracing their baby girl as they died. Juan had tried to get to them, but could not. We asked if he was afraid to work in there, and he said “Yes...this whole thing could fall any minute”.
Crying openly he spoke of his frustration with neighbors who are taking advantage of relief efforts; re-selling tents intended for homeless families. As for him, he said, "I will build my house, with my own hands, I will build my house, thanks to God. Unless my wife is too afraid, if she's afraid to live here we'll leave".
Climbing the wall in his patio is a lovely plant called Copihue, which he had brought from the Cordillera (Andes Mountains) and nurtured for years. To him it is "a sign of life here, of hope".
We prayed for him and with eyes full of tears he thanked us; "This is what people need right now." We left his precarious home with flowers in our hands; he shared his hope with us.
There really are no words to describe the horror of all we saw that day, so I leave it to the pictures to speak of these things. One bright spot was coming across a long-lost classmate from Bible college who was volunteering in a medical triage unit with actor Paul Walker. We thanked God for the encouragement of seeing our friend after so many years, even in such circumstances.