Peru's Believers Hold onto Faith amid Mourning
By Jennifer Riley
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Aug. 20 2007

Hundreds have died from Peru’s magnitude-8 earthquake including an estimated 200 funeral attendants who died when the church roof collapsed. What wasn’t lost, however, was the faith of many surviving believers.

Coffins strewn the streets as nearby rescuers dug among the rubbles of San Clemente church in hard-hit downtown Pisco, Peru. Despite overwhelming devastation and reasons for mourning, nuns and a priest stood quietly and calmly outside the ruins of the 300-year-old church waiting for word of two of their sisters who were buried in the rubble, reported CNN correspondent Harris Whitbeck.

“I couldn’t understand how this man and these women of the cloth could remain so calm, their faith so apparently unshaken while they contemplated the ruins of the church and the loss of people so dear to them,” said Whitebeck. “I asked them about that faith.”

The priest responded, “It’s difficult times like this that it exists.”
the rest photo

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