Kyushu Earthquake

Hi everyone!

By the grace of God, I am able to post a new entry on my blog.

For those of you who haven't heard, there was an earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale that hit Kyushu on Sunday. Fukuoka, where I am, was not spared.

We were preparing to make our way to a church which we had found on the Internet (the Fukuoka International Church). We started getting the boys ready at 8am, targetting to leave the house at 10am (yes, it takes 2 whole hours to get the family ready). When we finally stepped out of the door, it was 10.15am :). Sheldon drove to Tenjin and parked at his office. The church is a 15-minute walk away. We were about 1 minute away from the church when I felt the pram sway. At first I thought that I had hit a pothole or that Jojo was just keeling to one side (which he does quite often to keep himself entertained). But when I found myself struggling to stand upright, I realised something was amiss. People were screaming and rushing out of the buildings beside us. Once the tremour subsided, we joined the small group of people that had gathered outside the church building. Most of them spoke English and we learnt that Kyushu is relatively safe from earthquakes and that this was the worst that any of them had experienced. We stayed for awhile before making our way to more open ground. After 30 minutes, we decided that it was safe to go back to the car and head for home.

We had lunch at a restaurant below our apartment and then headed up. We were rather shocked to see that the whole collection of crystal wine glasses had fallen to the ground and shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. Milk tins were thrown from the shelves and a large book cabinet had toppled over. We are grateful to God that we were not at home at the time of the quake as the glasses were kept in a cabinet above our children's play area. Indeed His mercies are new every morning. We spent the next few hours cleaning up and thanking the Lord for His protection.

We are still feeling slight aftershocks. As my husband puts it, there is never a dull moment.

Missing all of you in Singapore.