Dear friends in my supporting churches,

I have just returned from Sri Lanka, where I went on December 29 in order to provide photos and stories for the ACT network. While there I also worked with the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, the local ACT member, helping them crank up their communication capabilities in preparation for the onslaught of work that lies ahead. Let me take this opportunity to thank you. Your support for my work made this trip possible.

I'd been home from India less than a week when I had to turn around and fly back. It was a physically and emotionally grueling trip. In Sri Lanka, I literally averaged two hours of sleep a night, surviving on adrenalin and tea. (When I got home to Eugene I slept for 12 hours straight. I don't think I've done that for decades, though my teenage son seems to think little of it.) I had hoped at several moments to have time to write you all, but that moment never seemed to materialize. And internet connectivity was difficult and at times impossible, given that I traveled to remote sections of the hard-hit northeast of Sri Lanka. Several times I had to send photos over a satellite phone, an experience that tries your patience and breaks your bank account.

I've heard from several of you that you've seen some of what I wrote and photographed. I appreciate your prayer and concern for me, and even more so for the victims and survivors of the tsunami. I know that many of you took special offerings for UMCOR, and I can assure you that your resources are both badly needed and will be well utilized.

This is a major, complex event. I won't repeat here the experiences and analysis that I've offered elsewhere, but let me rattle off some random observations.

1. In the wake of the tsunami, people in the U.S. have a newfound interest in south Asia. Some folks are already signing up for volunteer in mission trips to the region. Such interest, coupled with the generous financial response we've seen, is valuable, but we need to pay attention to making sure the relationship isn't one-sided. Fortunately, I believe the churches of south Asia have much to offer us in this encounter. Here in the increasingly multicultural but seemingly less tolerant United States, we have a lot to learn from our Christian sisters and brothers in the tsunami zone. In part because of their status as a minority religion, they have over time developed a faith that exalts Christ as Lord while at the same time acknowledges that other religions play a positive role in God's plan for humanity. In the case of Sri Lanka, where the tsunami hit an island nation where two decades of ethnic strife left 65,000 dead, they have been peacemakers in the middle of brutality, and now shepherds in the midst of chaos. As we rush to help them, let's see what we can learn from them in the process.

2. It's important not to forget other crises. We must not lose sight of disasters like that in the Darfur region of the Sudan, or what's happening in the Congo. At this point, many aid agencies have enough money for the tsunami, but their critical work in other areas is underfunded. Because of several factors–its uniqueness, its widespread impact, and the fact that northern tourists also died in huge numbers–the Indian Ocean tsunami got a lot of attention. Let's be attentive to the other disasters or disasters in the making where our resources and advocacy can make a difference.

3. Many of the world's governments have been quick to respond to the massive needs generated by the tsunami. That's the good news. The bad news is that their track record of honoring their pledges isn't very good. As we saw after Hurricane Mitch in Central America and the Bam earthquake in Iran, a lot of countries–including our own–simply don't keep their promises. We must hold the feet of politicians to the fire to make sure that doesn't happen again in south Asia. In addition, there's no good reason why governments like that of Australia have been able to give more money than the U.S. government. This is a good time for the U.S. government to break out of its chronic stinginess when it comes to supporting relief and development abroad.

4. I was very impressed with the commitment and capabilities of the Sri Lankan church folks with whom I worked; they give me confidence that monies we invest in rehabilitation through the ACT network will be well utilized. Many of them are Methodists (a church which came to Sri Lanka from Great Britain, not the U.S.), people like Nadarajah Arulnathan, the pastor in Pasikudah, where we had to don surgical masks to visit what's left of his church. The rotting bodies tangled in the underbrush can't be removed until the land mines that washed loose from a nearby military base are cleared away. Arulnathan lost 19 relatives to the tsunami, including a sister and her three daughters, but more than a week blurred by until he found the time to visit his family and share the grief. Like many Sri Lankans, he'd been a wounded healer, too busy to mourn, a victim refusing to be give in to despair if for no other reason than there was simply too much to do. "There has been no time for tears," he told me.

5. As in most disasters, I met people who had figured out why it happened. That usually involves a vengeful God punishing people for one thing or another. I confess I've lost my patience for listening to such trash. God is not some judge on high who ordered the waves to kill this person but to spare that person. For me, God was indeed present in the tsunami, but was drowning and dying alongside the thousands of others who perished. I had several theologians and pastors tell me that the tsunami was going to cause a paradigm shift in the theologies of the region, that Christians would be drawn more and more to the crucifixion as the key to God's incarnation in their lives.

It was a physician who voiced much of what I felt as I worked amidst the rubble. I met Dr. Kamal Peiris in a Catholic church in Moratuwa, a devastated coastal community south of Colombo. He had closed his practice and was spending all his time attending to the displaced families crowded into shelters in churches and Buddhist temples. When Sudharmika Kumari came to see him, she wept inconsolably when Peiris asked her what was wrong. "My daughter . . . " she began, and then her voice dissolved in tears.

Kumari's two-year old daughter Malik, her only child, was with Kumari's sister when the tsunami hit. As the water tumbled them through the streets, Kumari's sister lost her grip on Malik. The sister was injured but survived. Kumari found Malik's body two days later. Kumari's chief medical complaint is grief.

"We can prescribe medicines for medical problems, but we can't find a solution for the tears of these people," Peiris told me. "We can't solve this disaster. All we can do is struggle to overcome it in whatever way we can. Yet no one can overcome it completely. Parents have lost their children. Children have lost their parents. No doctor can cure that."

Nor can a missionary journalist. At the end of the day, words and even images fail, either to capture adequately the horror or to chart a way out of it. All we can do is offer who we are and what we have, opening ourselves to share the pain of those who grieve and struggle.

Paul

return to letters to supporting congregations