earthquake |ˈərθËŒkwÄ�k|
noun
a sudden and violent shaking of the ground, sometimes causing great destruction, as a result of movements within the earth's crust or volcanic action.
Im not gonna lie. I was scared. Im from Alberta, Canada. We generally don’t have earthquakes. My first thought was a train is rumbling past. And then logic kicked in. I am in the middle of the city. There is barely enough room for one car to pass through the street in front of us. We scrambled outside, after foolishly trying to fit under tables or anything for that matter. We must have looked quite ridiculous. A bunch of frantic foreigners amidst, considerably calmer groups of Asian families. As the tremors continued on through the night, we continued to react with the same sense of urgency. Get to safety. Thats the thing about earthquakes; there really is no place to go. Except up. And since we didn't have anyway of getting in the air, we turned to God. I know, I know. Cliche right? But here it is. We had nothing else. We were in a third world country. We had to rely on God to calm us. We had to trust that God had a plan. We could’ve said that “We’ll be alright. God will protect us. Nothing bad is going to happen to us.” But the reality is, that Christians die all the time. Car crashes, tornados, crossing the street, earthquakes. We had no way of knowing that God would choose to spare us but we had to have faith that whatever was in his plan was for good.
Last week was a crazy, awesome, emotional week. There was laughter, crying, anger. But the key thing we learned is that God is bigger. Bigger than poverty in Burma, bigger than than the corruption of the Thail police, bigger than the stolen innocence of children, and bigger than an earthquake.
Love you all!
Shelley
Don’t ever let anyone convince you that you have no power… All significant changes in the world start slowly, at a single time and place, with a single action.
~Jones, Haenfler, and Johnson
