S.O.S.

Friday 25 February 2011

We were awoken by another aftershock. With all these aftershocks, who needs an alarm clock? Anne, Alister, and I left. Alison had a work meeting in the afternoon, so she left a while later. We went to a storage area where the S.O.S. (Street Outreach Service) van was. This van used to go out in the night on the particular streets prostitutes would hang out. People in the van would give tea or coffee to the prostitutes. It went out during the "most popular times" for these ladies so they can talk instead of...going out. It is a unique and good ministry.

Well, as the popular street for these activities is munted (a new word used for horribly affected places), the van is currently going out to serve rescue and other workers in the cordoned off areas. Alister asked if I would go, and I said yes, along with three other people from our Church. Anne and Alister where visiting other people.

It took a long time to get going as it was difficult to charge the van or figure out how to get water. We decided to go to another Salvation Army Church in another suburb to get supplies. So we headed off. There was a driver, navigator, and two servers. I was one of the servers along with another guy named Chris. It was funny, because neither one of us really drink coffee or tea. So the most inexperienced people were serving tea and coffee to these poor people. We never got any complaints...that I know of...

Anyway, we were stacking the van full of baking, spoons, and other things to hand out to people. The boxes were stacked up quite high. So when the van turned, went over a hole, swerved, or anything else, I would have to throw my body against some of these piles to prevent them from crashing on the floor. It was not an easy experienced (seeing as these roads are not in the best of shape), especially when the floor was covered with various items. At times, I would get my foot stuck under something and almost keel over. There was probably an easier way to pack things, but I didn't know exactly how to do that. It didn't help that cabinets and drawers were constantly opening and closing. All the cabinets are quite low, so I frequently crashed my head against them. It was an interesting experience, definitely.

In the first stop, we served a couple people. Chris and I kind of hunched over, as the seats were not set up yet. It was so uncomfortable serving these people while being hunched over, so we quickly figured out how to set up the chairs. We sat in the chairs for the rest of the time, but they rocked when the van moved, so it was a bit unnerving.

Since neither one of us felt comfortable putting the right amount of milk or sugar into people's drinks, we let the people do that themselves. It worked out fine at first. The window that opens and shuts is a little difficult to handle. You have to push really hard for it to open. To close it, you have to push against it so it will gently shut. If you don't push against it, it will slam hard. We learned this the hard way. As we were about to leave, we were fixing a coffee. After the person received the coffee, he shut the window. It would have been fine if the lidless sugar container was not on the edge of the window. The window hit the sugar which, in turn, sent the sugar flying across the counter. We had sugar all over the counter, 1/2 of the banana loaf, both of our pants, and the floor. We were a bit stunned and he said, "Well, we could have handled that better...." We cleaned up the counter, and he tried to put the sugar in the container. What he didn't count on was the banana loaf crumbs falling into the sugar. So then he started picking out the banana loaf chunks. It was decided later that the 1/2 that was sugarless would be the "diet" side.

We stopped at this one place and met a lady who was taking care of cats. People in this area were digging holes in their garden as they were not to use the toilets. The cat lady said she stopped eating a lot, because she hated using the garden. Another guy mentioned that he knew a guy who lost his wife and best mate from the earthquake. It was so hard hearing these stories from people. People are obviously really hurting, and are having a hard time managing it.

We saw a lot of destruction. Cars are buried under collapsed buildings. I saw the Cathedral with the top off. We went around Cathedral Square. The main streets are horrible. Cars were marked clear (I guess showing no one was in there). The place Alison and I went to last year for my birthday has collapsed. The cafe Alison and I went to every Sunday is a mess. These places I went by and to all the time...most of them are gone. It was quite disheartening, seeing the destruction in person. I saw a lot of things that most people haven't and probably won't get to see aside from the TV.

Alister and Anne picked me up and we then picked Alison up. As soon as she got in the car, we asked how it went. It was a meeting to see what was going to happen, as they are not able to go back to the building (at least yet) in the CBD.

"I think I am moving to Blenheim." She was really having a hard time keeping it together. They cannot work in the building in the CBD, so they are sending several people to Blenheim (4 hours North of Christchurch) to work at that branch. She heard she may have to be there for 3 weeks until they can get a building to operate out of. We were all quiet realising even more of the impact this quake has created, just in our little family circle.

We went to bed early and were just about to fall asleep when we had another decent sized aftershock, bringing us back to earth. What a crazy couple of days! What is next?