Chile

It's been several weeks now since the earthquake rocked Chile. We spent several scary hours waiting to hear from Derwin, Dana, Kirsi & Aidan (Trav's brother and family). They live in Santiago, Chile, just a few hundred miles from the epicenter.

We've learned our lesson on how to contact them during a disaster. They were living in Sri Lanka during the tsunami and we didn't hear from them. After quite a wait, Trav contacted the Canadian Embassy in Sri Lanka and Embassy staff found them. Derwin and Dana were able to use a satellite phone from the Embassy to call home and reassure everyone they were okay.

Trav made phone and email contact with the Canadian Embassy in Santiago pretty early that morning. By mid-morning, we heard from Trav's folks that they were all okay. Amazingly, they had power back on in their neighborhood within just a few hours. We did hear from the Canadian Embassy later as well - they had very impressive follow-up!

You can read about their experience in the earthquake here and how to help here. Here's their post about the earthquakes last week.

We have teased them about how they attract disaster. So far they have taught in Kuwait, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Chile and this fall on to Jamaica. They were in Pakistan on September 11, 2001. After a few weeks their school evacuated them out of there for safety reasons. They spent a few weeks on a beach in Thailand and then the rest of the academic year in Trav's hometown of Swan River, Manitoba. Then, of course, the tsunami in Sri Lanka and now the earthquake in Chile. Watch out, Jamaica!

Anyway, we appreciate your prayers for our family and continue to keep the people of Chile close in your prayers and they work to recover from this disaster.