OM team members are in Pichilemu this week to help the people that almost lost everything because of the natural disaster that struck Chile. After the earthquake, the country is in desperate need for finances to buy building materials.

“Tiring and sad,” are the words Carlos Correa uses to describe the visit he paid to southern Chile last week. The field leader of OM in Chile travelled to Talcahuano, a port city that suffered hugely by the earthquake and following tsunami. Carlos and his colleague Yerko Clavero brought food and water to the area and visited pastors and churches, in order to organise relief work.

This week, OM Chile team members are already working in the damaged areas of Pichilemu, to help the people clean up and get ready for rebuilding.

Travelling to and in the south is not easy, Carlos states. “The roads are damaged and we had to go off the highway about five times. Bridges are completely destroyed, even two hundred kilometres away from the epicentre.”

“In Talcahuano, it was terrible to see what the natural disaster has left behind,” he says. The centre of the city was inaccessible. During their visit, there was a curfew from six o’clock in the evening until noon the next day. “It seems like the city has been bombed and then hit by the tsunami.” Carlos and Yerko visited a number of people, who all were very sad.

OM Chile is working with different pastors and church groups in the area that need provision. “What they mostly need is material”, Carlos states. “As we talk to the pastors, we realise that they have the people that can help, - builders, brick layers, carpenters and so on. What they lack is building material.”

In June and July OM Chile is planning to send work teams to the areas in the south. The rebuilding of the country will not be finished in a few weeks.

There’s much to be done. Please, keep Chile in your prayers.