Dear Brother Joseph
Thanks for your concern and prayers for us. We can say that the Almighty Lord God who spoke these things would happen, and through His Son, prophesied that earthquakes will take place everywhere. This time was our turn, but His powerful hand protected us from this terrible destruction. All brothers and sisters are well and my family too. My house, and our place of worship have no damage. It is incredible, but it is true. To God be the glory.
Being at 7 pm in the evening local time, I have just gotten electricity and Internet. That is the reason why I have not been able to respond to your mail. Also phone lines were blocked. Keep your prayers for us, because while I am writing this note, it is shaking again. I want to tell you my testimony of what I experienced the night of the earthquake.
I went to bed at 1 am after praying with a burden in my heart for all brothers and sisters and my family. I did not know why I had this feeling.
When the earthquake started at 6:20 AM, the tremendous noise, the undulating movement, it was impossible to stand on my feet, but I raised my hands to my shelter, the Solid Rock Jesus Christ. After the movement of 1.45 minutes and 8.8 degrees of intensity had stopped, the family gathered together on the first floor to thank our Savior for His protection. None of us was injured and our home had no damage.
Then we went outside to check that our neighbors were doing fine, and so they were. Then I made a call to the building in which I work for over 20 years as this job has been a blessing to me and family and to God’s work because by this mean, I have had the resources for missionary travels and so on and also locally. I was told that there was a chaos there, so I decided to go to the place even though the danger and my neighbors were telling me not to go.
I got there with my son, Marcos, and immediately began helping residents in the apartments that were locked, doors closed. We had no light, it was all dark. We had to shut down the gas switches and check the water system that had collapsed. As we went by the stairs, I had in mind our Tabernacle building, so then we left and tried making our way through the destroyed streets to get to Hualpen, to our Tabernacle. We took quite long to get there. Too much dust in the air, and finally, when we got there, I was relieved as I approached my car in front of the church. With the high beams of the car, I could see the building was standing unharmed. So I raised my hands and said, “Thanks God.” We entered and verified that there was no internal damage.
We have being trying to call most of the brothers and sisters, and we are informed that they had not been injured and no damages in their homes.
I have also received information from the other churches in the areas. It has been wonderful to receive calls from other pastors, with whom I had not talked to for some time. Brotherly love makes us to know about our brothers in the Faith. We heard that they had just a few material damages and minor injuries, but no any serious situation.
It's been a few days since the earthquake occurred, the calm is coming back, basic services are been restored, also food and we expect for a prompt back to normality, despite the fact that the earth continue moving.
To conclude we can say, “Thanks to the Lord, Who is mighty and powerful, and under His hand is the Earth and with His own hand has protected, giving us a warning that judgment is coming, but giving us time to be prepared.”
From my heart, thank you for your concern and the Christian love expressed to us also from other countries in the world. God bless you.
Your brother and pastor in trials and tribulations,
Rodolfo Alvarez