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07528 August 24, 2007
PC(USA) mission worker in Peru helping with earthquake relief
Newcomer Jacob Goad gets taste of real mission, real fast
by Evan Silverstein Presbyterian News Service
LOUISVILLE - Even though his first fulltime assignment as a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission worker started just eight months ago, 24-year-old Jacob Goad has already been airlifted into an earthquake zone in Peru, slept amid the crumbling ruins of a city nearly shaken off the map and helped to launch two feeding programs for hungry quake survivors.
Goad, who in January accepted the PC(USA)'s new volunteer position of delegations and partnership coordinator in Peru, is working with ecumenical partners in response to a deadly magnitude-8 trembler that struck off the Peruvian coast Aug. 15.
The response joins a massive international humanitarian relief effort that has been mobilized but so far slow in reaching quake victims.
Goad described the natural disaster as a serious tragedy, but said it has also been a valuable opportunity for him to experience firsthand how the ecumenical community can work together to reach out to people in need.
"It's also a good opportunity to see Presbyterian mission working as it should," Goad told the Presbyterian News Service by phone. "Where we unite and we look out upon a disaster and we say 'We can do something about this.' And we do. And we do it out of our faith and with a deep compassion. I think that the future of Presbyterian mission is about this ecumenism playing out in the world."
The earthquake was Peru's worst in 37 years, killing at least 540 people across the country's southern Ica desert region, injuring some 1,500 and leaving an estimated 176,000 people homeless. Power supplies, telecommunications and road links have been severely disrupted.
Goad, a lifelong Presbyterian and a member of Alamance Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, NC, continues to work with disaster response officials from the Anglican Church of Peru after helping to open two food kitchens that were serving warm meals to quake survivors by Saturday (Aug. 18).
One food program is located in the town of El Olivo. The other is situated in San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist). A third kitchen was opened on Tuesday (Aug. 21) in La Merced, Peru.
All three towns are in rural areas in the state of Ica.
The need for feeding programs in isolated rural areas comes as workers struggle to get aid to heavily impacted urban zones such as Pisco, the city hardest hit by the earthquake.
Along the highways, people from rural areas extended signs pleading for food, water and blankets for their communities, Goad said.
Those relief supplies were finally arriving in remote villages and hamlets in the region earlier this week, although only in a trickle. Tents and blankets remained in short supply.
Goad, who is based in Peru's capital, Lima, which was largely spared by the temblor, said plans are in place to team with Joining Hands, a ministry of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, to provide blankets to hundreds of earthquake survivors in the hard-hit city of Chincha.
The mission worker is also appealing to Presbyterians and other Christians to pray for survivors and to contribute money to a special account established by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA), the disaster-response and relief agency of the PC(USA).
"If people could just see it (the devastation) and just taste it and smell it and wrap their minds around it," Goad said. "I think people are really generous when they understand what's going on."
PDA is working in cooperation with partners in the area and fellow members of Geneva-based Action by Churches Together (ACT) Emergency Alliance in responding to the massive earthquake, said Susan Ryan, PDA's coordinator.
She said Peruvian members of ACT have already been meeting to formulate an extensive response and that "rapid response funds" have already been sent to the area.
"Things are still pretty chaotic there and it's still under a lot of military control," Ryan said. "Our partners are providing soup kitchens. They've carved out certain underserved areas are feeding people there. There's been $50,000 in rapid response money sent to initiate initial work in Peru from ACT.
"It will be a couple of weeks before they really build a long-term response plan and share it with partners," Ryan continued. "PDA will be responding generously to the plan and are ready as well to connect some specific skilled personnel if needed."
Ryan said she is communicating with Goad on a regular basis and is aware of his work with the Anglican church.
The day after the earthquake, Goad hitched a ride to Pisco with the Peruvian air force to assess the area for relief aid. The powerful shaker destroyed more than 85 percent of the homes in this fishing port 125 miles southeast of Lima.
In a preliminary report, Peru's Institute of Civil Defense said the quake destroyed 35,214 homes - including 16,000 in Pisco and 16,010 in nearby Chincha. It reported another 4,053 houses were badly damaged.
"When I got to Pisco I said 'I'd like to go into the city to see what it's like,'" Goad recalled. "And the guy that [I asked] looked at me and said 'What city?' He said 'There's no more city.' So we went downtown and it was just like he said, everything had fallen down."
When Goad arrived in Pisco's main square rescuers were still removing bodies from the San Clemente church, where hundreds had gathered in the pews Aug. 15 - the day Roman Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary's rise into heaven - for a special Mass.
With minutes left in the Mass, the quake struck and the church's ceiling began to break apart. The shaking lasted for an agonizing two minutes, burying nearly 200 people. The priest and a couple of parishioners were the only known survivors.
Goad spent Thursday night (Aug. 16) in the plaza where rescue teams from Lima had pitched tents and relatives held vigil. The mission worker spoke with displaced families while trying to keep warm next to a campfire. Some men from Ayacucho, Peru, let him take turns using their blanket.
Many of those unable to leave the quake-stricken region have opted to sleep out in the open for fear of another earthquake or further tremors, Goad said.
"It was scary," said Goad, describing his overnight stay in Pisco. "About 600 prisoners escaped from a prison just a town away after the earthquake. So everybody was sort of not trusting anybody in the streets. All the electricity was out. It was dark and the only things you could hear were the sound of generators and people talking about their family who they had just heard had been killed in the San Clamente church. It was really awful."
The next day Goad conducted relief assessments as search-and-rescue operations were in full swing and the government prepared plans to rebuild Pisco. He said a Peruvian doctor gave him bread and a warm cup of tea, his first morsels of food in 24 hours.
Food and water are scarce across Pisco, a city of about 116,000, and elsewhere. Disease control is also a priority now for the Peruvian Government, with fumigation operations now under away in Pisco and across many of the devastated cities and towns.
At one point hundreds of soldiers had to be deployed to restore calm to the streets of impacted areas where hungry quake victims looted aid trucks and markets.
"That is what a large disaster is like," Ryan said. "Every societal structure breaks down and to get some basic order restored is very difficult."
The temblor occurred in one of the most seismically active regions in the world.
In 1970, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake high in the Peruvian Andes triggered a landslide that buried the town of Yungay and killed 66,000 people.
Goad is a 2005 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor's degree in Romance Languages and a minor in social and economic justice. He first became interested in Peru and Latin culture at the age of 15 when he was invited to go on a mission trip to the South American nation.
He has spent three months there every year since 1999 before embracing mission work on a fulltime basis when he accepted the PC(USA)'s new volunteer position of delegations and partnership coordinator.
Goad's appointment was made possible through the support of individuals and congregations, and of his home presbytery, Salem.
When there are no disasters, Goad normally serves as coordinator for delegations and mission teams visiting Peru, working in cooperation with ecumenical partners of the PC(USA).
When asked for his comment about responding to a major disaster so soon into his tenure as a mission worker, Goad said: "My thoughts now are that I'm going to continue the work that I'm doing here. It's what I'm here for.
"When a disaster comes I think you have to react like any human should and that's a reaction of compassion. I look forward to doing that in an ecumenical way," Goad continued. "Together we can work better and not duplicate the work that needs to be done urgently."
Contributions for earthquake relief may be sent through normal mission-giving channels; designate gifts for the Peru earthquake, account DR000179. To make a gift by credit card, call PresbyTel at (800) 872-3283 or visit the Web site. Checks payable to the PC(USA) can also be mailed to: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Central Receiving Service, 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, KY 40202-1396.
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