Pray for China

The earthquake that struck Sichuan province at 2:30pm on Monday, May 12, will be remembered in China for decades. The casualty toll is in the tens of thousands and rising, and a high proportion of the dead are high school students. Unlike the Tangshan earthquake, which killed 240,000 (officially, unofficial estimates are as high as 650,000) in Hebei and Tianjin provinces in northern China in 1976--this disaster has unfolded on live television before the eyes of the world. For China, this is 9-11 without a scapegoat. This is another tsunami, but one that seemed to selectively target those with many promising years ahead.

Pancaked. That's how reporters have described classroom and apartment buildings in the quake zone. I used to teach 7th graders in an old building in Tianjin just like the ones that fell. I never gave much thought to the structural integrity of the place, even though the city memorial to the '76 quake that claimed 24,000 in Tianjin (pictured above, notice the soldier holding a small baby, presumably, orphaned by the quake) was mere metres down the road. I've spent the last couple of days remembering my students, and thanking God that they're safe. The epicenter was 1000 miles away from their classrooms. And still, even they, even I, feel like we've lost close friends, just by looking at those pictures.

Pray for China, and for the people of Sichuan, Chongqing, and Gansu provinces.

Pray that the local church, and the church across China will rise to the occasion--that they will care for the dying and comfort the living. That they will pour themselves out for those who have lost everything. Pray that the Wounded Healer will rise from the rubble.