Greetings in the Name of the Lord Jesus,
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10 (HCSB)
Little did we know how much we would have to take God at His word. We are leaning hard on Him. A 7.8 earthquake followed shortly after by a 7.5 earthquake in the same region with over 2,000 aftershocks in less than a week. Ten cities are completely destroyed in southeast Turkey and 13 million people have been affected. There’s a destruction zone of 288 miles, 75,000 injured, and over 33,000 dead with the numbers still climbing. Turkey has more than 1 million homeless people.
One of our partners on the ground, Sister Elmas, sent a message saying “I cannot even find words to describe things here, and I pray you never have to understand the full scope of what is going on. It is horrible, just horrible!! People who are not here cannot even understand the hard conditions we are living through currently. Our home is standing, though it has a huge crack in it, and it will probably need to be torn down. The building beside us is standing, but everything else has fallen. Our church building is destroyed too. There really is no safe building left in Antakya. At least 350 people in my neighborhood that we know are dead, maybe even more. These are the children and women who came to the church for different events.
“I have a relative who lives just a ten minute walk from my house and I cannot even make it over there. Our relatives are begging us to leave, but we couldn’t even if we wanted to. The conditions do not allow it. They did not understand until they came and saw the conditions for themselves. Everyday rescue teams are pulling out dead bodies. However, Friday, five days after the quake, they were able to pull out 3 people alive!!
“Praise God, we have a few supplies and can use the bottom part of our home as a sort of market, to help meet people’s needs. We are giving food, have set up a tent and given out other supplies to the people here. But we are hurting, we are worn! May the Lord give us wisdom and grace to pour out God’s love on these people, to embrace them and offer them hope. But how can we reach even half of these people? We need God’s help, strength and wisdom. Please pray!!”
This was from a dear sister who is in Antakya. This city is mostly rubble. They say that of the few buildings still standing, many of those will need to be torn down as they are not safe to leave standing.
Antakya is only one of the 10 cities that was hit hard by the earthquakes. We praise God that we see a strong coordinated effort among the Turkish churches to reach out to the people that are in this area. We also praise God that He is moving many of you to give toward the earthquake effort!
Your generosity matters, and for it we are grateful! Please prayerfully consider a financial contribution to this effort.
Please send checks to:
Rebridge 5016 Knobview Trail Winston-Salem NC 27104
