Just by watching the news it seems that every week brings a new form of devastation to a country. In reality, devastation happens all around us every day, it is in the large magnitudes that we are shocked awake. But these great tragedies that happen, that affect us on a global scale, do often bring our attention to countries otherwise would have been far from our minds.
On February 26 a massive 8.8 earthquake struck the country of Chile, killing over 300 people and displacing millions. In the wake of this disaster, I have wanted to learn more about this country that often seems so far away from here.
Chile is located in the southern most portion of South America. It is between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. In Chile there is freedom of religion, and statistically the country is 89.6% Christian, though less than 20% of the population would be categorized as Evangelical.
Even though the statistics show that there seems to be a great presence of Gospel witness among the people of Chile, the Church there still needs a lot of prayer and encouragement.
Ways to pray:
- There has been a lot of disunity between Evangelical denominations. Pray that God would heal the division and the Gospel would go forth in the midst of reconciliation.
- Pray against isolationism among the believers there. Part of the disunity stems from believers isolating themselves, thus hindering national and global impact.
- Pray that God would use this earthquake to spur on his Church to serve one another within the country of Chile, and to not become discouraged by the devastation among them.
- Pray that God would raise up missionaries to go to Chile, and that they would answer the call.
Read more about Chile here.