One year today, since the Christchurch earthquake. Today we are having a one minute silence at 12:51pm to remember the 185 people who were killed that day. Stuff.co.nz is running live updates of the anniversary today.
We were in Wellington, NZ last year when it happened and raced down there as soon as we could to help out. About 2 months ago we returned to Christchurch and had a coffee in the new retail area area of Christchurch called Re:START. Its a creative space made with shipping containers and quite earthquake proof.
Sam Chapman, who was with us when news of the earthquake reached us, said something very profound:
“Why we do wait for a crisis to realise just how precious we are to each other? We’ve got a whole society out there saying, “Love me before I become a statistic! Don’t wait till something goes wrong. Love me today!” I hope that out of the rubble, not just materially, but spiritually, psychologically, that the lessons we learn from tragedies like today, and there will be more . . . lets love each other! Lets not wait.”
Sam Chapman, Feb 22, 2011
Sam will be with us this weekend at Passionfest.
The Christchurch earthquakes have certainly been seminal (highly influential) – life changing events in the lives of people in Canterbury, and for many other NZers also
That is one of the BEST quotes EVER!!! That should be the heart cry of the Kingdom of God.