IndieWire

Hey All!
As some of you may or may not know, we are currently in the process of trying to raise money for a documentary on the town of Dichato, and the residents who are still without permanent housing nearly two years after the tsunami of Feb 2010 took their homes. You can go to our Kickstarter page HERE to learn more, and also to donate if you feel like helping us in making this dream a reality.

Currently, we are being featured on IndieWire Magazine's Project of the Month competition, and have the opportunity to talk to the Sundance Film Institute if we win. This could help push our project to the next level, get us some great contacts, and be an awesome encouragement to the project.

The documentary is called Espera Dichato, the voting is HERE, and we have until Friday morning to vote. Please tell your friends, neighbors, anyone with Facebook (as it's a Facebook poll) to vote! Thanks so much for your help, we are truly blessed to even be in the running.

Have a great day!
Missy and Jordan

Bathroom Construction

So we've really been moving these days in constructing bathrooms in the emergency camps located in the nearby town of Dichato. Need a quick catch-up of what we are talking about? Here you go --

After the earthquake of February 27^th, 2010 a town near Tome was washed away by three large tsunami waves. Most people escaped up into the hills, but practically all of the houses were swept into the ocean. Following a few weeks of living in tents, the government moved people onto land in the hills around Dichato. They constructed emergency houses that look like this, basically a one room 18x18 meter square. Now, almost two years later, there are hundreds of people still living in this emergency houses in five different camps located around the outskirts of the town. For nearly two years the people have had to use port-a-potties and water-tower showers. They have gotten their water from large tanks of potable water located in the camp, there was no running water anywhere.

Last summer, a Merge team from Wisconsin installed running water to every home in one of the camps. Since then, more of the camps have now been equipped with running water to their homes; and after putting some pressure on them, we were able to get the government to install a septic system in these camps as well. After the earthquake our church, Riversgate, raised some money to help with reconstruction. So after a lot of prayer we have found a way to use this money raised in a way that can offer the most help to the people displaced by the tsunami. Just $100 buys a toilet and sink along with a bathroom floor and the other necessary pieces to install a bathroom in one of these houses. Currently we will be able to buy about 60 bathroom kits, and are planning on providing bathrooms to the 28 families in this camp and then going to other camps to provide bathrooms to the elderly and sick.If you are interested in donating, go to the Paypal button on the top right of this page. This will link you to the church Paypal account. Specify in one of the information lines that it is for a bathroom, and in providing your name and address your donation will be tax-deductible.

For a testimony from one of the people this reconstruction project has helped – check out this video:

It's been an amazing experience to not only minister to these people during the time we are installing the bathrooms, but also to be able to provide them with such a basic necessity. Again, while we are the ones on the ground with this project, we are in no way responsible for how it came to be. Without your prayers, donations, and encouragement none of this could be happening. The people in these camps are so thankful to all of you, and we thank God that we have been able to partner with so many of you in order to provide such help to so many people.

God bless you today,

Jordan and Missy Reid

Crazy day in Dichato

Prelude to the post


I would ask that you read this post when you have some time not only to read about it, but also when you have some time to think about how easy to get caught up in our own world not even thinking about how great we have it in life. Missy and I have had to think hard about some of the complaining we have been doing about the cold here, and how we are missing home a bit.

We've also really had to stop to think about what a blessing it is to be serving down here, and also how comfortable we really are. We have a good roof over our head, a wood stove, food, running water in our house, and a bathroom and shower that we dont have to walk down the street to share with 50-100 of our neighbors.

I would ask that you really try to put yourself in the situation of the people of Dichato, The people of this small community have been through so much, and are still having to fight to get the most basic living conditions in a time where the winter climate is really taking its toll on everyone down here in the region.   After you are done reading the post I would ask you to prayerfully consider what you might be able to do for the residents of Dichato; whether it is daily prayer, a donation to an individual bathroom fund (a complete set of all bathroom fixtures is around US $100),  coming down here to help out  with a team from Riversgate church, or in another way.

One other quick disclaimer in all of this, we are not taking any sort of political stance in any of this, we are not Chilean citizens, and do not have any sort of say in who the government officials are or laws that are or are not passed. The views of what the government is or is not doing are what we have learned from newspapers, television, internet, being in Dichato, and in talking to people. We have not sat down with any government officials to get their side of the story.

Carol's Visit: Married Group Dinner

A few weeks ago, we had the chance to go out to dinner with our married group to celebrate Valentines Day. We spent the evening at a restuarant in Dichato.

Some close friends, Alejandro and Paloma

Pastor Luciano and his wife, Alejandra

Me (no I'm not alone..Jordan is taking the picture)

A "parrilla" which basically means a big bowl of meat with burning coals underneath to keep it warm. It includes chicken, blood sausage, chorizo, intestines (chitterlings I believe is correct?), beef, with some potatoes hidden underneath. Not really our thing..but everyone else loved it!

Carol with Luciano and Ale

The whole gang after the feast, most of our married group was able to attend.

(I know I'm not looking at the camera, but oh well!)

Have a great Tuesday!

-Missy (and Jordan!)

Merge Team Visit!

Last week we had a super busy week hosting a Merge team from Wisconsin. They were a great group, 12 in all. They stayed in host homes in Tome their first night and the rest in an emergency shelter camp that is in Dichato, the nearby town that was destroyed after the earthquake.

Team on their day off exploring Dichato

They spent the week really working hard to bring running water to 28, that's right, 28 houses! Jordan and I weren't sure they'd be able to do it all in a week, but they were super motivated and a very encouraging sight to the people living in camp. They were able to dig trenches to each house, put in all of the pipes, and install sinks and showers outside of every home. (For just about a year, the homes have had no water to them, and so the people of the camp share 6 port-a-potties and 4 showers built shortly after the earthquake. They get their potable water from 2 large cisterns at the entrance to the camp and use that to cook and clean with. The showers are connected to a non-potable water source that comes from the hill nearby.) After finishing the installation at each of the houses, the team built a new tower for 2 more water cisterns, to bring more water from the hill to supply each house water to wash and cook with. It isn't technically potable, but it can be boiled.

Team with members of our church and people from Dichato

The team left with only the connection in the hill left to finish. The people are so close to having water in their homes, the contractor we were working with is finishing it up this week – so hopefully we can get a video up of some homes with running water soon!

Team with finished water tower

Jordan and I each had roles on the Merge staff, I was in charge of meals and he was in charge of the translating for the construction project. Cool right? It was really fun being part of the Merge experience, and Jordan did an AMAZING job translating. We had a great week, and made some great friends, from both Dichato and from Wisconsin. Thanks guys for all the hard work you did!!