Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

Thank you to so many of you who have written and called to check on us. We really appreciate it very much. It was a scary night last night. They are saying now that the quake was 8.0 on the Richter scale. It was definitely the worst we've experienced since living here.

We are all fine. We were without power until just about 30 minutes ago, since 6:40pm last night [Wed. Aug. 15] when the earthquake hit. I was on the road to prayer meeting in Salamanca and Lori was at home with the kids doing homework. It was by far the strongest tremor we have experienced in our time here. I was stopped at a light in traffic and my car started to rock and bounce from one side to the other. I watched the car in front of me rocking and that made me realize it was an earthquake and not some kind of assault on my vehicle by a gang or something. Once the traffic cleared, I immediately sped back home to check on Lori and the kids. They were outside the house in pitch black as our whole part of the city was without power. The kids were terrified. Lori said they had seen the doors, walls and concrete walkway literally convulsing under their feet as they made their way out of the house. There were multiple aftershocks, so till 9pm or so would come back inside only to evacuate again a few minutes later. All in all, we are immensely thankful to the Lord for his goodness to us and our whole team and church here in Lima. Everyone from our church in Salamanca and on our team is fine. In Salamanca they never lost power and continued with the prayer meeting like normal.

Please pray for our Peruvian brethren in the area near the epicenter, near Ica, Peru, as the death toll is 300+ and rising with thousands injured. We are praying that the Lord will open the door for us as a mission and church to help them in some tangible way in the days ahead, and would ask that you pray with us for that as well. MTW may send a disaster relief team to travel to the affected area. If that does work out, I'll likely be going with members of our team and church to help. We'll keep you posted on that.

Once again, thank you so very much for your love and concern and for your prayers,

With love in Christ,

Mark and Lori
Lima, Peru

Contact information:
mberry@mtwla.org
http://limanewcity.mtwla.org/

Support information:
Mission to the World
P.O. Box 116284
Atlanta, GA 30368
Support Acct #10541