A Gathering Voices post by Lynne M. Baab
“How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! . . . She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks” (Lamentations 1:1, 2).
I spent last weekend in Christchurch, which has been shaken by hundreds of earthquakes in the past 18 months, some of them causing great damage. (For readers who don’t know me, I live in Dunedin, New Zealand, five hours south of Christchurch.) The last time I was in Christchurch was almost exactly two years ago. My husband and I attended a conference on faith and the arts, hosted in the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church building, built in 1881 and damaged beyond repair by the earthquakes. It has been demolished. As a part of that conference, we had a tour of the magnificent Roman Catholic Cathedral in Christchurch, also damaged beyond repair and waiting for a decision about demolition or rebuilding.
The “red zone,” which used to be the downtown of Christchurch, is a no-entry zone consisting of about two dozen blocks, cordoned off with a chain-link fence. Demolition of damaged buildings leaves concrete dust in the air and constant background noise. Peering through the fence, I could see five or six cranes, working to demolish, not build, and various earth moving machines dealing with huge piles of rubble, some of them more than two stories tall. Peering through the fence, I could also see numerous vacant lots where buildings have already been taken down. If you live in a city, imagine life without your downtown. Inconceivable. (Some astonishing interactive photos of buildings in Christchurch before and after the earthquake are here, and some before and after photos are here. Notice how many churches are included in both sets of photographs.)
Even two or three miles from downtown, vacant lots dot the streets, a blank reminder of buildings that were damaged too much to be repaired. Christchurch residents tell me they have trouble navigating as they drive around the city because so many landmarks are gone.
I went to Christchurch last weekend to speak at a church conference. That church building was closed for almost a year for repairs needed because of earthquake damage, and the minister showed me the places in the building that had been damaged and repaired. In his own home, he showed me all the cracks that will have to be repaired. He said that the damage to homes and businesses seems so random. One building or house is repairable, and the building or house next to it needs to be demolished. There was seemingly no correlation with the age or quality of structures. As he introduced me to the people attending the conference, the introductions went like this:
“Here’s Susan. She recently moved across town because her house is damaged too much to be repaired. Here’s John. He and his wife have been able to stay in their neighborhood, but they their closest neighbors have had to move away. Here’s Jane. She’s in an assisted living facility. It seemed the best option after the earthquakes damaged her house so much. She wasn’t really ready to move there, but the earthquake hastened things along.”
I was delighted that a woman I know attended the conference. She moved to Christchurch right before the earthquake to pastor a central city Methodist Church. The church was completely destroyed, and she was never able to get anything out of her office at the church. The manse was also damaged beyond repair, but she was at least able to get some things out of the manse. Her congregation is meeting in rented space, trying to figure out what to do with the land the church and manse are on. Should they rebuild there? Should they rebuild elsewhere? Should they continue to rent?
The pastoral issues in Christchurch are enormous. Seniors displaced. Children in new schools. Big decisions for congregations to make. I came away from the weekend motivated to pray for the people of Christchurch, and to pray for the ministers, social workers and counselors there, who face the task of providing care for long-term dislocation while they themselves are mourning for all their own losses.
“How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! . . . She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks” (Lamentations 1:1, 2).
