Blisters = Peace

Blistered and tired, I sit in my room tonight, finally feeling a little peace after the earthquake.  Two days after the 6.3 quake that destroyed the historic Christchurch area, I woke up this morning as an aftershock shifted my bed into motion.  This little reminder of what happened two days before made my restless sleep turn into restless awaked-ness.  Agitated that there was nothing for me to do, I decided to go work out.  An hour and a half later, as I walked back to my room, I was stopped by my RA who informed me that there was a meeting to mobilize a Lincoln Uni group to go help clean up.

Immediately I volunteered.  I wanted to help and this was the only option they were giving us.  After signing in, about 60 of us students loaded up in cars and headed into one of the Christchurch suburbs.

Upon arrival, we were met with welcome arms from the community.   It was absolutely insane to see some of the damage from the quake however.  The roads were broken and oddly shaped from the recent shift.  There were also holes in the pavement, preventing us from driving on roads that had been in perfect condition just days before.

And as you can see here, this earthquake also caused lots of liquefaction.  Now if you are anything like me, you have no clue what liquefaction is.  As one of the locals described it, this substance is mainly silt and water that has bubbled and spewed up out of the ground, breaking through cement, concrete and grass, releasing the pressure from beneath the surface.  Looking around just the neighborhood we were in, it was hard to imagine all that mass coming up from what we would consider a pretty stable/hard surface.

BUT WE WERE THERE TO MOVE IT!

Armed with shovels and wheel barrels we had collected around Lincoln, we dug out two foot ditches along the sides of the streets in our adopted neighborhood to try to locate the drains and move the liquid part of the liquefaction into them and out of the city.  We also dug out driveways and cars that had been parked along the street.  After completing this task, we went door to door, asking people if we could help them on their own property.

One of the houses that I ended up working on had 4-7 inches of liquefaction covering their entire lawn and in their car port.  To make matters worse, the couple was disabled and had no way of moving the tons of liquefaction off their lawn on their own.  4 hours later however, my group had their entire property cleared and the liquefaction piled for the town council to remove.   By the time we were ready to leave @ 5:30 pm, the entire neighborhood had been dug out and there was nothing left for us to do there, so we loaded up and headed home.

So yes, I have blisters covering both my hands, a sunburned elbow where I missed reapplying sunscreen, filthy clothes that created a trail back to my room, and I am exhausted, but today I made a difference.  You could see it in the locals’ eyes when we left that their hope was returning.  New Zealand is hurting and broken, but there is hope even with the disheartening news today of no rescues, 98 dead and 206 still missing.

Please continue to pray for the New Zealand people.   There is still much to do here and it’s going to be a very long time before life is back to normal.  Without even the basics of drinkable tap water or being able to flush the toilets, this is going to be a very rough time for Christchurch.