Early on Tuesday morning I turned on the radio to listen to the CBC news.  I could hardly believe my ears when I heard about the massive earthquake that had devastated the centre of Christchurch, New Zealand.  My husband and I had lived there for four years, from 1998–2002, visited the city numerous times and had formed friendships with many people who live there. We were heartbroken.

My first response was to pull from the wall a delightful, small original watercolour, featuring the historic cathedrals and churches in the city centre and two people in a row boat on the river. We kept it before us as we prayed for our dear friends, survivors, those who had lost relatives and friends, and those who would be involved in the rescue operations.

Knowing that we were leaving home very soon and would be gone all day, I then fired off an e-mail to our friends in New Zealand to let them know that we were keeping them and the whole situation in our thoughts and prayers.

When I opened my e-mails Wednesday the first response was from our friend, Peter, who just happened to be visiting the city. In it he said: “I had just moved from my seat when a massive piece of masonry crashed right where I was sitting. Helped pull out dead and injured.  Salvation Army in Christchurch doing well.  When I got to Wellington I was treated fantastically well by an Army team as I was a victim.”

Since then Peter has sent other e-mails, in one of which he mentions that the two cathedrals in our picture, together with “many other buildings in New Zealand's most English city will have to come down.” He has also forwarded several e-mails demonstrating just how quickly and efficiently The Salvation Army has gone into action in very difficult circumstances.  “A feeding program was up and running almost immediately and Salvationists are also boosting the psychosocial team that was already established as part of the ongoing recovery work from the September 2010 earthquake.”

Knowing individual “Kiwi” Salvationists as I do, I am not surprised, for they are very pragmatic, kind and resourceful and as I read each report I find myself saying  over and over again, ”Thank God, Thank God, Thank God.” They have been so helpful to my husband and me, enabling us to pray intelligently for the ongoing relief work.

And in tandem with the many mixed emotions have been Scripture verses that I know have been the bedrock of their response. Verses that are hidden deep in their beings, even though they may not quoting them to themselves, chapter and verse, as they continue to do what needs to be done.  And as I record them now, I sense deep in my gut, that in ways of communication that far exceed all the incredible technology of the 21st century, God is going to take them and use them to encourage their spirits.

The NIV translates Psalm 46:10 as: ”Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” And the Message paraphrase states: “Step out of the traffic. Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.” It is this perspective that, in God's good time, will help them get them through a situation that is challenging beyond anything I can comprehend, and to do so: “Not somehow, but triumphantly!” – as my friend Peter would say, because ….. “He is all my (their) hope and stay.”

Colonel Gwenyth Redhead is a retired Salvation Army officer. She and her husband, Robert, have held a wide variety of appointments in the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. However, her passion has always been to encourage others in creative responses to God through writing of scripts, stories, articles and lyrics (mostly to Robert's music). She has two daughters, Joanne and Corinne, and rejoices that they, too, use the creativity God has given them in ministry.