Worshippers gathered outdoors on Sunday (Feb. 27) after an earthquake ravaged New Zealand’s second-largest city, meeting in unfamiliar churches and next to damaged buildings to reflect, pray, mourn and give thanks.
The death toll from the Feb. 22 quake reached 147 on Sunday, and is expected to double as dozens were trapped in wreckage. The entire central city was cordoned off as hundreds of rescuers continue to find bodies in the rubble.
“It’s going to be a very poignant day for a lot of our people today, as they reflect … on our values,” Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker wrote in the New Zealand Herald. “It’s a day of everybody reaching out. We need to keep our spirits up.”
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(RNS/ENI) Displaced New Zealand Churches Mourn Their Dead
Worshippers gathered outdoors on Sunday (Feb. 27) after an earthquake ravaged New Zealand’s second-largest city, meeting in unfamiliar churches and next to damaged buildings to reflect, pray, mourn and give thanks.
The death toll from the Feb. 22 quake reached 147 on Sunday, and is expected to double as dozens were trapped in wreckage. The entire central city was cordoned off as hundreds of rescuers continue to find bodies in the rubble.
“It’s going to be a very poignant day for a lot of our people today, as they reflect … on our values,” Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker wrote in the New Zealand Herald. “It’s a day of everybody reaching out. We need to keep our spirits up.”
Read it all.