March 2, 2010

Dearest Loved Ones,

First off, I want to thank each of you for your phone calls, notes and especially your prayers in the past few days.  We have had such an outpouring of love and cannot express enough our gratitude to each of you.

I talk to Tom several times a day via the internet and we consider that in itself a great blessing in these stressful times.  He lost his electricity and internet right after the quake itself but it was back on within a few hours.  The building where we live in Vina is an extremely well-engineered one, and very structurally sound.  Yes, there have been things broken; yes there are some cracks in the walls in some apartments in the hotel, but nothing at all that is serious. In Chile you ALWAYS see cracks in the walls--it is part of living in "earthquake country."  Tom did tell me last night that all of Vina will be without water for (ok, this is where the "old" in me comes into play) either 24 or 48 hours as they are repairing one of the major water lines into the city.  Even so, we feel very fortunate in comparison to what we have seen in other places.

Our Harding students are now scheduled to arrive a week later, on March 10 instead of March 3.  In some ways, that too is a blessing, with everything else. We are truly getting excited about the semester now! Tom has worked so hard this week to get everything ready and with me being gone he has had even more work to do.  This will give him a bit of time to rest before they arrive.

I am still in Fort Worth with my mom.  I am trying to get back to Chile as soon as I can, but as of right now I am scheduled to fly out next Sunday night.  Pray that I can at least get out then and not be further delayed.

Tom and I ask that you continue to pray for our friends and family in Chile , especially in Concepcion, where we lived and worked for four years.  We have still not heard anything from most of them and are so very concerned.  We dearly love the Chilean people as Chile has been our home for 29 years now and such a part of our lives.  Please remember these dear, dear people.

We also ask your prayers for my mom, as I will be leaving her in a few days hopefully. All in all she is doing pretty well, but of course very concerned about my return, etc.  I plan to travel back for 9 days in April so it won't be long until she sees me again.  For those of you who know her a card every now and then to her would be great: Eva June Case; 5301 Bryant Irvin Road  #1132 ; Fort Worth , TX 76132 .  I would sure appreciate it.

Once again, I want to thank each of you for all you have done.  I especially want to thank those of you who traveled to be with us for Dad's funeral (Wallace Case) and those here in Texas who were right by our sides during the past week. I love each of you and you are all in my prayers.

I will keep you posted on latest news as it develops via notes like this from now on.
 

Much love,

Pam