Story number 2 for 10 Sep 2002

(Papua New Guinea)–Meanwhile, missionaries at New Tribes Mission are thanking God for protection after a large earthquake shook Papua New Guinea Monday morning. New Tribes Mission’s Nina Zelenak reads us an email from missionary John Holmquist. “We got hit with an earthquake that registered 7.6 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was 60 miles northwest of Wewak. It happened at 4:45 AM and was quite a wake up call to all of us. As the ground and houses shook with incredible force. Many people fled their houses in fear. Everyone is fine. The main damage at New Tribes Mission base came from three broken 2,000 gallon water tanks.” In 1998, a similar earthquake caused a tidal wave, which killed two-thousand people. Zelenak is thankful the earthquake didn’t cause more damage because…”Wewak is one of our bases. It’s a supply base, so that’s where the supplies come in an then their shuttled out to the out bases from that location.” Damage to the base would have halted that activity.