By Dee Yaccino

I recently had the privilege of spending 5 days in Fraijanes, Costa Rica with a group of 10 other pastors and church leaders from RdC networks throughout Latin America.  We had originally convened the gathering for RdC / DCC connectors for the end of January to celebrate all the wonderful things God did in 2008 through the networks of churches that we each represent and to look forward to what 2009 might bring.

But, our agenda was altered when we received a call on January 8 from our friend, Roy Soto, who is pastor of Shalom Community Church in Fraijanes asking us to pray because a half hour earlier they suffered a devastating  earthquake that measured about 6.2 on the Richter scale.  He told us that it quake felt as if someone was picking up the ground around them and violently pounding and shaking off the dirt.

And that is what it looked like when I saw it a couple weeks after it happened.  Roads had been cleared and rubble and glass in homes had been swept up, but brokenness could still be seen and felt everywhere we went.

As we entered several houses to pray for the families of Comunidad Cristiana Shalom (CCS), whom we’ve come to know through the relationships built over the years as network family members, we listened to their stories.  They shared with us where they were when the earthquake happened, what they did to try to escape injury, and what they were thinking as they were being knocked off their feet for 22 seconds.

I held it together emotionally most of the time, but certain moments in their stories made me enter into their pain and joy in ways I had not expected.

Graciella is the soft-spoken wife of one of the leaders of CCS.  She is pregnant with their first child.  At the time the earthquake hit (around noon), she was out in the back of her house and heard her mother screaming from the kitchen.  When they could finally get to each other, everything on the walls and cupboards and shelves had been knocked to the floor and broken into bits.  They just held each other and began to cry and wonder what else happened… to their loved ones, their homes, the community…

(more…)