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Starting the New Year Off with a Bang

The other night I was lying in bed reading the Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew. The part towards the end of the book when Digory, Polly, and Fledge are sent by Aslan to look for the secret garden. Upon finding the garden, Digory slowly opens the gate when the wicked Witch suddenly jumps over the wall into the garden startling Digory. Suddenly my bed violently began to shake, moving over an inch or two, and my mirror rippled from the bottom corner to the top. It sounded like a train was going to crash through my apartment building. "That was weird," I thought. It wasn't until the shaking started a second time a few seconds later that I realized what was going on. Earthquake! The floor was trembling when my feet hit it as I made a run for the front door. It felt like the apartments were going to fall down. The shaking had stopped by the time I had reached the front door. It was surprisingly peaceful outside. Nothing was disturbed. 
My phone started vibrating like crazy from all the messages coming through the missionary group chat. We had just experienced a 7.8 magnitude earthquake someone said and were now under a tsunami watch. The mission is located so close to the beach that it can be seen from most of the missionary houses and the hospital and the children center is located only a few short walk from the beach. There was a few moments of panic as we tried to figure out what should be done. 
Reagan and little Alison
 We quickly dragged the sleeping kids at the children's center out of their beds and evacuated them to a building on higher ground next to the hospital to wait it out. Some of the kids were scared and wanted to be held, others ran around crazy thinking it was a big party, others went back to sleep on their blankets on the concrete floor. Time seemed to pass unusually slowly as we waited and watched for more warning updates. 
We are thankful God's protection over the coast as the threatened tsunami waves never came and there was no damage from the earthquake. Aside from loosing a little sleep, we are all safe and sound. The clinic was open as scheduled the next day and teacher training continued. God is good! We are blessed!
 Prayer requests:
The re-inauguration of the current president on January 27th will likely bring more protests and civil unrest. Pray for peace and safety
me and my Britani


waiting it out

snuggles with Miss Samantha

Alisa, Danely, and Keidy

Ashley, Britani, and Miguel

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