When the foundations are shaken-as many Peruvians recently experienced-people examine their lives more closely. That's the observation of an HCJB Global Hands' disaster response team that treated more than 1,300 patients in the quake zone near Pisco, Peru.

Physically shaken by the two-minute quake of Aug. 15, people remained emotionally traumatized during the team's Aug. 18-25 visit, prompting an openness to discuss spiritual matters.

Impressed by this spiritual climate, team members were also awestruck by the quake's devastation. "Arriving in Pisco, what left us entirely impressed was the city's great destruction," said Dr. Juan Carlos Santamaría, one of the Ecuadorian physicians on the eight-member team. "It looked as if it had been bombed. Hardly a house remained standing.

"The people were trying to clean up the rubble. In many areas they couldn't uncover the dead," he continued. "The bodies they found had been placed in the city's principal plaza a day before we'd arrived, and there were some 50 dead."

For the first time since the mission began sending teams to disaster areas in 2005, it included a professional counselor. German HCJB Global missionary Klaudia Wolff, provided a listening ear even as her husband, Eckehart Wolff, a surgeon, treated about two dozen fracture patients. The team came on invitation of Samaritan's Purse, a relief organization headed by Franklin Graham.

"It was absolutely fantastic to have Klaudia along," said International Healthcare Coordinator Sheila Leech, a nurse who led the team in Peru. "She had a real gift of being able to relate to people. . . . There were many aftershocks, and we saw how people reacted . . . sheer panic. Whenever there was a person who was obviously emotionally affected, they would be referred to Klaudia . . . including some of the bereaved people."

Leech said she was "absolutely thrilled to see how people's hearts were open and how many, many people-at least 25 people that we know of came to know Christ or made some kind of commitment to the Lord during the 5½ days that we were there.

"Many, many times people would tell us, 'We thought the world had come to an end' . . . so it was a wonderful opportunity for us to talk to them and say, 'Well, the end of the world hadn't come, but there will be a day when this world will end, and the Lord Jesus will return to take those who belong to Him.'"

Friday, Aug. 24, was the busiest day of the outreach as the team traveled to four different communities. On Monday, Aug. 20, Eckehart Wolff saw patients, more than 30 who arrived with fractures that hadn't been treated since the earthquake struck.

"We couldn`t attend to those who needed surgery-which is my work-because the hospitals with surgery facilities were totally destroyed," said Santamaría. "But obviously we're doctors first of all and we gave good medical, clinical attention and obviously with good results. It was a well-formed team and we always worked together as a team."

At press time, the death toll from the magnitude-8.0 quake had reached 540 with more than 1,600 injured and at least 54,000 families left homeless. In the worst-hit areas an estimated 40 percent of the homes were destroyed with another 10 percent "severely compromised."

Leech said it was a "huge advantage" to work in conjunction with Samaritan's Purse which handled logistics such as housing and meals for team members.

Leech marveled at how God has sent last-minute resources before nearly every disaster relief team went out. Earlier trips responded to catastrophes in Indonesia, Pakistan, Ecuador and the Solomon Islands.

"It's amazing because on a number of trips medical supplies from the Netherlands, Germany or somewhere else had just arrived, and the disaster response teams were able to pack them and take them along," Leech explained. "So that's always an incredible provision from God for us."

The team that ministered in Peru was amazed at the resilience of the people who had endured such tragedy. "They understand the important things in life-it's not stuff," she said.