Two New Castle-based missionaries to Chile have e-mailed an update to their home church.
Lou Ann Rees Woerner and her husband, G. David, are field directors for the Christian & Missionary Alliance missions in Chile. Their home church is First Alliance on Mission Meade Drive.
According to the Web site of the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church, the Woerners returned to Santiago, Chile, in July after a year on home assignment.
After the 8.8 magnitude earthquake on Feb. 27 that devastated portions of the South American nation, the Woerners e-mailed to say that they were fine, although their home was without water, electricity, phones and Internet.
The latter two were restored quickly, and now the lights are on as well.
In their most recent e-mail, Lou Ann Woerner wrote, �We immediately called our oldest son, Davey, who turned 28 on the very day we were powered up.�I think we talked for more than an hour.�Comforting.�We�ve also now been able to touch base with most of the immediate family members.�
However, she added: �Our own comfort is somehow clouded by the untold and unbelievably difficult life of more than 1.5 million families in the mammoth earthquake center.�
The Woerner�s church, Cordillera Alliance, had sent out three truckloads of aid in four days, but �it�s the proverbial drop in the bucket.�
�Nevertheless,� she said, �we are the Lord�s hands and feet right now to serve others. All of our C&MA; churches in Santiago are mobilizing the youth, and funds and articles of first necessity to be shipped south.�CAMA Services, the relief arm of the C&MA; to help in disaster areas, has already advanced our national church $15,000 to buy and ship immediately water and food to the needy areas.�
�C&MA; families have been left totally destitute.�Many in the coastal areas are living in the hills, because aftershocks continue to plague them, and panic runs rampant.�
The Woerners, though, are encouraged by the acts of charity they have witnessed from Chileans themselves.
Two civil engineers they know left their work immediately to drive to Constituci�n with a ton of food and clothes.
Another couple who own a metal works headed out in their four-wheel-drive vehicle for Parral, where they delivered food and water.
A member of the Woerners� church has taken in a family �for the duration,� until they can get back on their feet.
�A gentleman in Concepci�n � the only one with running water in his neighborhood � is giving water to all of his community, not minding a bit what his bill will be like,� Woerner wrote. �A grandma in her 80s, who happened to have been stocked with flour, water and oil, is making bread for all until her stock goes dry.�
Likewise, Woerner noted, the owner of a small restaurant who had just filled up her freezer and dispensary with food the day before the quake was handing it out to feed her neighborhood by noon the next day.
�Things just multiplied, she said,� Woerner wrote. �Food kept appearing.�She was feeding 100 people a day. One elderly couple in tears thanked God. They would not have survived this week with her.�
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DONATIONS ...
�The C&MA; continues to funnel donations to Chile through its Web site at www.cmalliance.org.
�Donors should click on Chile Relief Fund.
