Concepcion is a city located where the Bio Bio River meets the Pacific Ocean and has a population of approximately 500,000. It is heavily industrialized and in 2010 it suffered much devastation from an earthquake and tsunami.
Our day started by meeting our Lutheran hosts in Concepcion - Carlos, Oscar, Mario, and Maria. It was very evident in the places they took us and the stories they told us, that they were very passionate about environmental issues affecting their community. And we were all inspired by how they lived out their faith as advocates for various social justice issues affecting the most impoverished and vulnerable In Concepcion.
Our hosts shared both their actions and frustrations while trying to create a green space next to the river and near their church in order to protect the area's ground water supply. It had been a community dumping ground for garbage and construction waste and they had worked hard to clean up the area. Unfortunately, the dumping has started again. In fact, a dump truck came to empty its contents on the property while we were there. We could sense their pain, anger and feelings of powerlessness. We also visited a heavily industrialized area where they were working as advocates against air pollution since a large, but poor, neighborhood and school were nearby. These issues help define the church's mission here and Maria stated that their motto is, "We are the resistance."
Our focus now turned to viewing the devastating affects of the 2010 earthquake and ensuing tsunami. We slowly traveled up the winding road to a lookout area that gave us a panoramic view of the bay and city. On this warm, serene morning with the ocean's blue sparkling waves gently coming to shore, it's hard to imagine how awful the events of that day must of been. But even four years later, one can still see the scars on the landscape. We listened to their recollections of that day and from our vantage point we were shown where the the worst damage had occurred. With pain in their eyes they stated things like, "We had no warning," "557 persons were confirmed dead, not counting the missing," "We were misinformed," etc... There still are emotional scars too. Later in the afternoon we toured the low lying area where the tsunami did the most damage and we could still smell the stench in the muddy fill dumped there during the clean up process. Some new row houses have been erected with government aid for the residents who decided to return but the partial skeletons of former businesses still remain....
In the distance of the bay we could see the island Quiri Quina which was used for "very dangerous" political prisoners during the dictatorship. Pastor Oscar shared with us that he was detained there for 6 months when he was only 17 years old. Old wounds.... Healing comes slowly.
The rest of our day was spent meeting, getting to know and worshiping with members of the congregation San Pablo. We had a moving devotional in the home of Diaconico in Santa Clara and then we visited the San Pablo church and we were intorduced to a new fruit. It tasted something like a peach once we peeled back it's green skin. God's creation is amazing!
One of the highlights of the afternoon was singing songs of praise at congregation San Pablo. We were honored to hear the debut of there new worship band comprised of guitars, drums and an accordion! They were great!! (You know, we really should think about adding an accordion player to our own praise bands when we get back to Iowa.)
Once again, our hearts were filled with the love and hospitality of our new brothers and sisters in Christ here in Concepcion.
