David Hinds blog "I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet"

David Hinds is serving as a missionary in Southern Chile. He sent this message on Facebook.

"We are trying to let as many people as possible know that we are ok, no injuries. Our apartment is not habitable at the moment and we don't know if or when we will be able to go back. We are at our team leaders house, they have a building in the back they use as a class room and we have a couple mattresses on the floor that we can sleep on. Pray that God will show us how to glorify Him in all of this."

The message below was posted on his blog at: davidandlindahinds.blogspot.com

I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet…
Posted by David Hinds
As I was sleeping Friday night in our fifth floor apartment, I heard the noise of things falling. I opened my eyes and felt the room shaking vigorously. The light on our bedroom ceiling shinning from our alarm clock read 3:34. I instantly realized what was happening and shouted to Linda “It’s an earthquake, let’s get out of here”! I headed immediately for the front door, all the time the shaking was becoming stronger. About the same time as we entered the hallway, the electricity went out leaving us in total darkness and the sound of falling debris was getting louder. Then the building began violently lurching back and forth. We held on to the wall to keep from falling. By feeling our way along the wall, we made it to the stairwell and found that the emergency lights in the stairwell had come on and we were able to see. We made our way down the 5 flights as fast as possible and soon were out in the street in front of the apartment building. There were a few other people out there also. The shaking started to lessen and after about a minute it had completely stopped. It was then that I noticed that I didn’t have any clothes on; just my shorts, no tee shirt, socks or shoes. Linda had had the presence of mind to grab a bathrobe, but she also did not have any socks or shoes on. Linda and I talked with a young woman who was visibly shaken. I told her that this was my first experience with an earthquake and asked her if this one seemed serious. She said that yes, it was very serious and that she thought that the epicenter was very close. She didn’t not seem to be the lest bit bothered by my lack of clothes. My embarrassment grew as the number of people with us there in the street increased. I decided to chance it and go back in to get something to wear. It was still dark in the apartment, but I quickly found a flashlight, some sweat pants, tee shirt, socks and shoes. I retrieved my wallet and keys. Luckily Linda had not shut the door behind her. I could see a lot of glass on the floor in the apartment and hallway but neither of us had cut our feet on it. The automated gate to the parking lot was not functioning so I worked with several other men to open it so we could drive out.

Our first thought was of Anders and Jessica Snyder, a young missionary couple on our team who live in another high rise apartment only a few blocks away. They have two small children ages 4 and 2. They were not in the crowd in front of their building so I checked their parking space and the car was gone. I concluded that they had gone to our team leader, Trent Tomlinson’s house, so we decided to go there also.

After calming the children the six of us adults gathered around the Tomlinson’s dinner table and prayed thanking God for His love and asking for His wisdom and inspiration for the days to come.

About 2 or 3 years ago I started receiving a hymn every morning. The instant my eyes open a hymn starts playing in my head. It is always different hymn, although they do eventually repeat it is never the same hymn two days in a row. During the excitement, I hadn’t noticed that this had not happened when I awoke today. As we closed our prayer time the ‘hymn of the day’ flashed into my mind and I shared that with the other team members. We all sang the wonderful old hymn.

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him
How I’ve proved Him ‘ore and ‘ore
Jesus, Jesus precious Jesus,
Oh for grace to trust Him more