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New Zealand Anglicans assess damage, reach out to others
Twenty-two people lie dead in cathedral rubble
New Zealand church leaders of many denominations have been in touch with Christchurch's funeral directors and sent them a list of churches that are still able to hold funeral services, and they've alerted the parishes that they've been offered for funeral duty, Anglican Taonga, the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia's news service, reported Feb. 24.
"It is absolutely understandable that their first concern is for their parishioners and church family. But there has to be a parallel effort," Bishop Victoria Matthews told Anglican Taonga. "They must make every effort to reach out to their neighbors, and to be in touch with the wider community."
Matthews also helped to coordinate ecumenical pastoral-care centers in area churches, the news service said. They include a Baptist church in the south of the city, St Timothy's Anglican Church in Burnside for people in the north and west of the city, and St Chad's Anglican Church in Linwood on the east side. All three churches have water and power.
A sign outside St. Chad's asks "Feeling Shaken?" adding "Open to Pray & Talk."
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has apparently written to Matthews saying in part that "we thank God that you and your people are there to offer strength and comfort to all those caught up in the personal suffering this has brought."
The letter is not yet posted on the Anglican Communion website or Williams' own site, but is shown here.
An interfaith prayer service set for Feb. 27 in Hagley Park, the largest open urban space in Christchurch, has been postponed for a week and may be re-located, the story said. City officials did not want traffic hampering access to the severely damaged central part of the city.
Matthews said that the service will be different from the one held in Cathedral Square after the Sept. 3 magnitude-7.0 quake. That one, she said, was a service of thanksgiving, in part for the fact that no one was killed by that temblor. This time, she told Anglican Taonga, there will be lament as well as thanksgiving.
The official death toll increased on Feb. 25 (local time) to 103, including a five-month old and a nine-month old. Another 228 are reported missing and hopes are fading of finding any more people alive.
"It's horrible to watch, but we all hover around TV screens to watch and maybe might recognize any friends we have that are ok," Beth Richards wrote Feb. 24 to her extended family, including Su Hadden, operations manager at the Episcopal Church Center in New York. Richards, who lives in Nelson at the top of the South Island and north of Christchurch, is one of Hadden's four cousins who live in New Zealand.
Another cousin lost his best friend in the collapse of the CTV (Canterbury Television) building. As many as 122 people in the building are believed to be missing or unaccounted for, including more than 80 staff and students from a language school housed in the CTV building.
There are still an estimated 22 people lying unrecovered at Christchurch Cathedral where, police say, there was no chance of surviving the collapse of the building's tower. The fatalities are presumed to be tourists, as all volunteers and the nine cathedral staff members survived.
Matthews told the New Zealand Herald that "the ones we're most concerned about are the people who had gone up into the tower -- this happens with tourists every single day. They go up because there is -- or there was -- such a fabulous view from the tower."
Tourists were eligible for tower-climb certificates after they ascended the tower's 134 stairs.
She said a woman who got out about a minute before the tower came down reported that there were people still up there behind her when the tower came down.
The Very Rev. Peter Beck, cathedral dean, told the Herald that he accepted an emergency services priority of rescuing those who may yet have a chance of survival amid the collapse of other buildings. Search dogs could not smell any sign of life in the rubble.
Jamie Canard, a 38-year-old programmer, was eating lunch and watching people play chess on a giant board in Cathedral Square when the quake hit. He described the tower's collapse as a steadily increasing crescendo as it toppled over.
"It wasn't deafening, which surprised me, but it just slowly got louder," he said.
Matthews said the cathedral will be rebuilt.
Other Anglican churches in Christchurch have also been badly damaged, according to Taonga. St. Luke's in the City, St John's Latimer Square near the cathedral and Holy Trinity Avonside have all suffered "devastating damage," Matthews said.
St. John's website shows a photo of the church building after it was damaged in the September quake. A New Zealand Herald photo here shows it after the most-recent temblor.
Wendy Souter, organist at Holy Trinity, was reportedly practicing in the 141-year-old church when its south wall collapsed.
''The windows imploded, the wall [beside the piano] had fallen down and she was sitting there playing the piano,'' Sam Struthers, son of rector Neil Struthers, told The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald's website. The younger Struthers was in the nearby vicarage when the quake hit.
''She's OK, but she was pretty shaken up. I just took her outside and held her for about 10 minutes.''
Sam Struthers' car was crushed by falling stones. His father was driving in Christchurch at the time of the quake.
The rector said that the church had been reinforced after the September quake when a window valued at $1 million was lost, along with a 100-year-old painting.
Parishioners were ''devastated,'' he said. ''They all had the hope that this would be rebuilt.''
Struthers said he will live in the damaged vicarage ''until they tell me I have to get out.''
''It's my home. Where would I go? What would I do?''
Matthews told Anglican Taonga that "to the best of my knowledge no clergy are missing."
"I have a real concern that there are clergy who are themselves traumatized, who are seeking to help other people who are traumatized," Matthews added. "We are going to have to watch this carefully."
She spent several hours Feb. 23 talking to clergy who had contacted her, according to the news service.
Matthews has set up temporary headquarters in the Mclean Institute, which owns a two-story retirement center across the road from the Anglican Parish of St Barnabas in Fendalton, just to the northwest of Christchurch. The Anglican Center in downtown Christchurch is cordoned off and Matthews' office and home have also been damaged.
A number of respite accommodations are being set up for people who need time away from Christchurch, Anglican Taonga reported. Parishes in the Diocese of Nelson in the northern third of New Zealand South Island were asked by Bishop Richard Ellena to offer respite of up to a week or so to families, single people and the elderly who would like to have a break from the devastation in Christchurch, further south on the island. More than 24 individuals have come forward to offer places.
As of the morning of Feb. 24 local time, 431 people had gone through the Christchurch Hospital emergency room and 164 admitted with serious injuries. In one case, a 52-year-old quake victim was saved when an Australian doctor who was in Christchurch for a urology conference amputated both of his legs above the knee while the man was still trapped in the Pyne Gould Corp. building.
The area continues to feel aftershocks. Because Christchurch and its surrounding suburbs are built on an alluvial plain, the ground of river deposits of sands and mud never consolidated into stone, and the soil naturally contains a lot of water. This caused the ground in many areas to liquefy during the quake.
Resident of Bexley outside of Christchurch experienced liquefaction during the September quake and again this week. As she shoveled the resulting charcoal grey sludge, Donna Jackson told the New Zealand Herald why locals were smiling through their pain: "Because we're not dead."
Photos showing the liquefaction aftermath are here.
Archbishops David Moxon, Brown Turei and Winston Halapua, co-primates of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, have launched an appeal to help the Diocese of Christchurch and Te Hui Amorangi Te Waipounamu.
The Anglican Diocese of Wellington is managing the processing of donations. Checks made "Bishops Appeal" or "Bishops CHCH Appeal" may be sent to Bishops' Emergency Appeal, Anglican Centre, PO Box 12046, Wellington 6144.
"Above all, we encourage you to uphold the people of Christchurch and surrounding districts, and all the emergency and rescue personnel assisting them, in your prayers," the appeal notice said.
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