The story of one of the most significant and sustained church responses to the Christchurch earthquakes has been published.

God is where the pain is… is the story of Christchurch Community Response[1], and a story which began within hours of the February 22, 2011 earthquake.

Parishioners at the Church of The Saviour (COTS) – in Auckland’s Blockhouse Bay – became so burdened by the reports they were seeing and hearing out of Christchurch in the days following that fatal quake that they wanted to reach out to help with their own bare hands.

They made contact with friends at St Christopher’s Avonhead, and offered to send a repair team down to the stricken city.

Folk from St Christopher’s billeted the COTS repair team, and in the course of a frantic 10 days, the COTS repair team made more than 100 homes safe and secure again by doing minor repairs – unjamming doors, for instance.

And that, in a nutshell, is how and where the idea of Christchurch Community Response was hatched.

Because both before and during that 10 day period St Christopher’s had sent a door-knocking team out on the streets of the smashed eastern suburbs to find the homes that needed the repair team’s attention. 

And long after the COTS first-aid building work had ended, CCR has continued to send out teams of volunteer doorknockers, first to the embattled east, then to all parts of the city to connect with hurting people, and to link them with agencies who could ease their various post-earthquake nightmares.

That CCR door-knocking work has continued, in fair weather and foul, to the extent that by mid-2016, 66,000 Christchurch homes have been visited. The impact of that outreach hasn’t gone unnoticed, either.

“No-one”, Bishop Victoria Matthews told the 2015 Christchurch synod, “has done better in caring for their neighbour than Christchurch Community Response. The CCR volunteers have shown the love of Christ across the entire city.”

The book that describes the evolution of that CCR effort – God is where the pain is ­– was recently launched at St Christopher’s, with Bishop Victoria and about 75 others on hand. There was the renewal of old links too – with the original COTS repair team being beamed in to the celebrations via Skype.

God is where the pain is costs $25:00 and is available by emailing: earthquake@stchristophers.org.nz. All proceeds are being returned to CCR to enable them to continue door-knocking and finding those who struggle, still.

[1] see Taonga magazine lead story, Advent 2015