The Rev. Martin Stewart, Moderator of the Presbytery of Christchurch, has forwarded an update of earthquake news as well as a personal message.

It has been a busy day… Anne and I attended a funeral, a 40yr old mother of four young children dropped dead most unexpectedly late last week – a sad sad end to the life of a serenely lovely woman who was a key participant in our Thursday pre-school music & play group.  She won’t be listed as an earthquake casualty but we consider she is.

Peter Cheyne [Moderator of the Presbyterian Church] and Martin Baker {Assembly Executive Secretary] came to Christchurch to be alongside a group of 25 Presbyterian ministers as we shared and prayed and planned.  The support in our church family is much appreciated.

We are creating networks to handle various aspects of the earthquake aftermath – the east side of the city has been very hard hit and we do not have many people on the ground there.  The two Wellington Presbytery trucks with 600 food parcels arrived at 6pm – I happened to catch up with them briefly before they headed in the eastern suburbs – what a mission!  The effort of the Wellington pressies that has gone into this is quite wonderful, it is a story worth sharing.

St Georges in Linwood was demolished yesterday [2 March].  Sheena, the minister, spoke of how caring and sensitive the work was carried out with the guy in charge offering a prayer and his workers coming to her seeking absolution before they started the engines of the machines!

Another church will be bulldozed in the next couple of days with some others also on the schedule.  In the scheme of things with lives having been lost we know that they are only buildings, but they have been significant houses of worship for many generations of people and it is all quite shocking.

Best wishes

Martin