Earthquake Update

As the death toll continues to rise in one of the largest earthquakes in Latin American history (recently upgraded to 8.0), word from our friends in Mala is quite good - please see below:

Marty Clark from Union Biblica del Peru writes - "the 30 boys along with Rosa and Raul are fine at Kawai. Frightened, but safe. Abdon's house is quite cracked and with another hard shake might fall down. Tomorrow, we will go and find out. We THINK that Alan's house in Chincha fell, but we need to confirm that. Pepe (another school's worker) lost 2 walls of his house. We are trying to find out about Ica, but the phone lines are down in many places...so we don't know too much."

Word from Arequipa and the Alto Cayma project is also good. Jim Hintz reports - "I know that many of you are worried about the earthquake that occurred in southern Peru yesterday evening. Fortunately for us in Arequipa, we felt it but it didn't do any major damage. Telephone and internet service was affected, however, so I couldn't respond to any messages last night. As you know, the quake was centered near Ica, which is between here and Lima but much closer to Lima, and the damage there was much greater even than in Lima. We have visitors, Bob and Betty Edelen, who are headed this way, but they had not left the States at the time the quake hit."

Please continue to keep our friends and the people of Peru in your thoughts and prayers. More information to follow.