Pastor Jason Fuller was planning to enjoy a meal at a metropolitan mall in Quito, Ecuador, Saturday night with his 11-year-old son and three others from First Baptist Church in Orange. As they sat in a spot on the fourth floor of a mall, they felt shaking. Their interpreter told them it was an earthquake.
“It’s a very helpless experience knowing you can’t do anything about it,” Fuller said Thursday.
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the central Pacific coast of Ecuador Saturday. At this time, almost 500 people have been reported to have been killed and more than 4,000 injured.
Fuller said the epicenter was about 120 miles from Quito, but at the time they didn’t know where it was or how long it would go on. “The shaking lasted only 40 seconds, but felt more like 10 minutes,” he said.
At the time, Fuller was worried about being four stories up and how he and his group could escape if the building started to fall. “There’s not a quick way t exit,” he said.
Besides his son, Noah, the others with Fuller were Euger Deets, Mark Bland and Cynthia Brown. They had been in the rainforest area of Ecuador on a week-long mission trip.
After the shaking, they decided to skip the meal and get to the airport. Fuller said they were fortunate to have plane reservations out that night.
From Quito, they still had 40 miles to go to the airport. Everyone was nervous on the trip because they didn’t know what was going on and whether there could be an aftershock. They couldn’t find any news about the quake or where it had been centered.
At the airport, “we could see glass on the floor and cracks in the wall,” Fuller said.
They flew out on the trek home. “We were pretty rattled by it, thinking later what could have happened,” he said.
Members of First Baptist Church in Orange have been traveling to Ecuador for the past few years to share Christianity and help the needy in the poor rural areas in the rainforest. On this trip, the group brought 170 pairs of shoes donated by students at Little Cypress Intermediate School where Noah is a student.
Fuller said they handed out a pair of shoes, socks and underwear to children. They also conducted programs for the kids similar to Vacation Bible School with arts and crafts, lessons and games. He said one day they moved from one village to another village 10 miles away. Thirty children at the first Vacation Bible School walked the 10 miles to the other village to participate again.
The trip also included six dentists and dental hygienists who were providing care for the people. One of the dentists was Dr. Jacob Moore, who grew up in Orange and is the son of former Orange dentist Dr. Dod Moore. The church also has Shiloh Barrow from Orange County who has been in Ecuador for two years.
Pastor Fuller said the earthquake won’t stop him from traveling back to the country. “Things happen everywhere you go,” he said. “We don’t have any control over that.”
Social Media