"He shakes the earth out of its place, And its pillars tremble;"
Job 9:6
Our day started out yesterday with great news that the paperwork for our land had arrived from La Paz. Anxious to proceed to the next step to finish the process, we decided to ignore the threats of blockades and go to town.
All went well with the paperwork, and we were able to drop it at our lawyers office and continue on to do our errands. We encountered our first blockade in the center of the city, but we managed to get around it and drive to another part of the city to get out of the main area of blockades, or so we thought.
We soon ran into blockades all over the city and decided to head home without doing our errands. What should have been a 45 minute trip took an hour and a half. Thankfully, we made it home and weren't delayed in blockades for hours on end. We thought that was the stressful part of our day. But later in the day we experienced a shocking jolt.
We were both upstairs working on several projects when with no warning, we heard and felt what we thought was a loud explosion and our house began to shake and sway. It felt and sounded as if a large aircraft had crashed into the mountain behind our house.
I saw the house swaying and screamed, "Let's go," as I picked up our 18 year old Shih Zsu, Kelsey, and ran down the steps, Chuck right behind me. We were stunned by the noise; we had never heard such a bang. Even though we had experienced earthquakes before, this didn't seem like an earthquake because of the noise. When we got outside it became evident it was an earthquake because the ground was still moving.
The epicenter was right where we live, in Cochabamba, and although it was just a 4.3 magnitude, it rocked our city. People panicked all over the city, some damage was evident, but nothing devastating. Bleachers collapsed in a school, and children had minor injuries. A factory burned to the ground, and some buildings had broken windows. Certainly, it was a blessing that it was not higher on the Richter Scale, especially since we were at the epicenter.
The earth shook out of its place, and the foundation pillars of our house trembled, but we are still standing––so is our house. We are thankful all is well. We felt the power of an earthquake, but we know who controls that power. Just as Job realized the power of God, so did we yesterday. We're thankful to be in the Hands that control all things. And, we are thankful to have a house today and be safe in those Hands.