Riza Fortuna

Everyone may have heard of the recent disastrous earthquake in Sichuan province in China. My line of work is in the field of Health, Safety, and Environment which includes ensuring the safety of our people across Asia. We have a manufacturing plant in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. For successive days after the earthquake, I was on phone talking with the site safety manager and reviewing the status of our plant and people and giving them recommendations on how to ensure the safety of the site and its people post-earthquake.

After 3 days of doing phone reviews with our Chengdu Plant, I felt in my heart that the right thing to do is to fly and visit the site myself. Nobody asked me to do it but I can sense the distress in the site people and that their biggest need for the moment is assurance. They need to be assured that their plant is safe, or can be prepared to be safe to resume operations, but more than anything else, they want assurance that they can overcome the trauma of this whole tragic experience. There may be nobody hurt in our site during the earthquake but the emotions and psychological state of the people are greatly affected as they see their surroundings and know of the thousands of deaths in their province.

The leading was confirmed during my prayer time last Friday morning where I came across the verse “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:16). Frankly, I was scared to go to Sichuan. There are a bunch of risks which include the aftershocks which to-date is now over 5000 in occurrence. However, I felt deep in my heart that the right thing to do is to go and visit the site myself. I cannot continue just doing phone reviews when I can fly and be there. Much more, I wanted to encourage our site people especially the safety team who have been working extraordinarily to help ensure the safety of everyone. So I was there last Sunday to Tuesday. God’s grace was enough to exercise my faith that allowed me to respond to the call of the moment.

When I was there, I did on-site inspection of our facility and the on-going repair work. True I was able to contribute technically, but what made me so glad to be there was to see the spirits of the people lifted up because they feel supported whenever they see external people like us coming over. I also discovered that my main contact, the site safety manager, had difficulty finding a new house to stay since her apartment building had some damage. I saw her distress and my heart goes to her since she was ensuring the safety of everyone else, but she herself was in want of shelter. Even when she told me not to worry I contacted some colleagues in our work network and asked them to help her find a new apartment. Soon enough, the outpouring of support came. The company itself through HR has been providing generous support to our employees along with generous donation to the disaster relief operations. My contact eventually found a temporary shelter. The colleagues I contacted may not have been able to provide direct support to find a new apartment for her, but their gesture did provide moral support to our Chengdu colleague.

On Tuesday, the day I was to fly back to Guangzhou where I am based, I got an early text message from my contact that the government advised the public there may be an aftershock of 6-7 scale during the day or the next day. I was advised to immediately go back to Guangzhou. My flight that day was at 2pm and I was in dilemma that early morning whether I will leave Chengdu right away or stick to my flight schedule. I was led to ask for prayers from sisters and brother in my Christian community, and to continue with my usual morning prayer first before doing any move. I was asking for God’s direction for the day and the verse “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved (Psalm 55:22, RSV)” struck me strongly. Such verse told me to just stay put, lift up my situation to God, and trust that I shall never be harmed for God intended to protect me and keep me safe. So I decided to stick with my scheduled flight, went on with my day where I had a two-hour conference call in the morning which I led, and then went to the airport at noon. When I arrived at the airport it was a mess. It was thickly filled with people who were mostly tense. Maybe many of them are seeking a safe shelter in other China cities. Amidst the chaos, I was praising God that there is no major aftershock and I am safe while in Chengdu. I claimed he answered the prayers that my community brother and sisters prayed with me:
“That if God wants, he will not allow the major aftershock to occur and that he have mercy on the Sichuan people and keep us all safe”. My flight was delayed for three hours where two of those hours I spent inside the plane which took long to take off for undisclosed reason. When finally I arrived in Guangzhou safe and sound I was just so grateful for God’s faithfulness. Looking back the previous days when I decided to go to Chengdu, I already had the assurance deep within that all will be well because God is with me all the way. Praise be to God who never fails to look after and hear His people! (Riza Fortuna, May 22,2008)

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 am and is filed under Current Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.