Earthquake/Tsunami

Monday, February 07, 2005

Greetings!

I am sorry that it has been so long since I last updated you (Friday the 28^th of January). In the 10 days I’ve been home, I’ve been privileged to “tell the story” of what the Lord did through our team to four different congregations, and have many more invitations to do so in the next 6 weeks. I’ve also been taking time to compile a DVD’s worth of pictures, videos, etc., which chronicle the earthquake, tsunami, and our relief efforts. If you are interested in obtaining a copy, email me; it’s free to those who have supported the trip, and/or available for any donation toward a future mission (more later on that). In addition, jet-lag, pastoral, and familial obligations have also taken their share of time; but ENOUGH excuses! Herewith, a report! J

There’s SO much to report, that I’ll probably break it up into a couple of emails. Previous emails have told the story of how I personally got involved in all this. Feel free to click here if you didn’t get those, or need a refresher. In this message, I hope to report on what we were able to accomplish while we were there; future messages will be dedicated to what we will be doing in the future.

Day One (Tuesday, January 11^th); I traveled from Seattle to Tokyo, about a 12 hour flight. It felt good to finally touch down in Tokyo, but it wasn’t long (one hour!) before I was back in the air to Singapore (an additional 8+ hour flight). In Singapore, I met up with the rest of our SWI DART team, including folks from throughout the US. All told, our team was a complete “bakers dozen” of 13 people, all from different regions of the US, different denominations, and various ages (from 60+ to 23 years old). It was amazing how the Lord brought us all together, and a tribute to His mercy and grace how united in thought and purpose we all became.

Singapore is an amazing city, with an even more amazing airport, which houses several “day rooms”. Since we only had a 6 hour layover, most of us decided to just catch a shower at the gym and spent the remainder of our time checking out the amenities. The airport offers free internet terminals, so I was able to fire off a couple of emails to Lynette, and visited with the rest of the team.

Day Two (Thursday the 13^th); The team flew from Singapore to Medan, Sumatra, the largest of the islands which comprise Indonesia. Medan is a fairly modern city of nearly 3 million people, and estimates of the Christian population range from 30-45%. We met with our team leader, Steve Dawson, who had just returned from a quick tour of the epicenter of the tsunami-damaged Banda Aceh. He shared with us his initial assessment; at least 80,000 were feared dead (most recent confirmed deaths are officially 114,000 in Indonesia, with another nearly 128,000 MISSING! Total presumed dead: almost a quarter million (242,000), nearly all of whom were from Acehland). He shared a grisly, yet heartwarming story with us of how “open” the people he met were: while he was documenting the devastation (pictures are at my website), he saw a truck filled with body bags roll past slowly. In the back of the truck was a cleanup crew wearing masks (the stench was, and IS, nearly overwhelming) and latex gloves covered with mud and gore. Steve indicated he’d like to take a picture; they consented, but as he was fumbling with preparing his camera, he noticed out of the corner of his eye their hands, reaching down to help him up! Not planning to actually JOIN them in their “bed of death”, he was momentarily taken aback, but immediately saw the humanity of the moment- these men, who had faced horror and death all day, were now smiling, as they hoisted up a fellow human being, a LIVING one this time, into the back of their truck. This reaction, and openness, and willingness to share in suffering AND smiles, was to serve as a model and precursor of MANY similar exchanges we all would share with the people of Aceh in the next 2 weeks.

Day Three (Friday, the 14^th); after a night at the Best Western Hotel (wow! What a blessing!), we made our way to the airport. As we drove in, we were shocked by the traffic; Indonesia, like many parts of the world, has a “different” way of managing the “hustle and bustle” of city life. On roads which looked to be built for 2-lane traffic, as many as 6-8 lanes filled with trucks, buses, mopeds, bicycles, and all manner of conveyance can be found; honking, jostling, speeding, and generally ignoring any road signs and traffic lights, somehow they all seem to make it to their destinations safely. I reckon that angels who have been somewhat “naughty” are punished by long assignments of watching over the traffic in Indonesia! :-)

Steve, who on his previous journey to Banda had been forced to resort to the use of military transport planes (the venerable C-130 Hercules among them), was this time able to obtain tickets on the national airlines for the entire team. So, the 13 of us were on our way; the 50 minute flight to Banda Aceh was punctuated by the groans and shouts of sorrow of fellow passengers, most of who were, like us, seeing the devastation for the first time. In their case, however, they were seeing it from a completely different perspective; unlike us, they had a frame of reference from which to compare the once beautiful, pristine shoreline to what lay before us now; muddy beaches defiled with oil from the petroleum refineries, littered with so much rubble and debris one wonders how they will ever find places to bury it all. As we finished our descent, we could see the “brown” line of devastation, sometimes 3 and 4 miles inland from the coast, with virtually NOTHING, save a few spindly palm trees, left standing. A quiet, somber, reflective mood accompanied our eventual landing.

The conditions at the Banda Aceh airport were jarring. Gone were the air-conditioned, albeit smoke-filled (it seems EVERY Indonesian male is a smoker) terminals we had left less than an hour before in Medan. The air controller tower was un-manned; the Malaysian government had brought in a “temporary” one to help control the air traffic in and out of the airport, which was becoming increasingly choked with flights. All manner of aircraft; some military (we saw New Zealand, Australia, and Malaysian military personnel), as well as humanitarian aid, was coming via commercial jets, propeller planes, helicopters. Each had a mission; to assist the Acehnese people, to bring in aid, to help find and bury the dead.

The chaos was immediately obvious. We disembarked down an open staircase propped up against the jet doors (not ALL that unusual in developing countries, but striking nonetheless in contrast to what we’d experienced in Tokyo, Singapore, and even Medan). The “baggage handling” consisted of waiting for the luggage to be hoisted from the baggage berths under the plane, and then dragged over to the gangplank of the terminal. Since the “luggage carousel” wasn’t working, each of us had to go out and “claim” our suitcases; this basically meant rummaging through the pile until you found yours, while staying out of the way of fellow travelers doing the same thing. Not surprisingly, several of us, myself included, DIDN’T find our luggage. At that time, we weren’t sure if it had made it onto the plane in Medan, or was simply overlooked by overworked handlers in Aceh. A light drizzle made the moment complete! J Eventually (the next day) I did get mine; two of our teammates weren’t so lucky, they never did get theirs.

In the midst of the chaos, though, there were some signs of hope. We saw so many people willing to share in the struggle to assist the Acehnese. We met with representatives of CBN’s “Operation Blessing”, as well as Christian medical teams. Many had been there since just after the tsunami struck; they brought us reports on what they had seen and heard from their points of deployment all up and down the north shore. They confirmed what we already knew from Steve, that foreigners, especially Americans, were being welcomed. Off the coast of Sumatra lay the aircraft carrier group “U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln”, laden with US aid, medical equipment, and dedicated service men. I pondered the irony of the “Great Emancipator”, this time pressed into service to set free the hopes of yet another downtrodden people group struggling to find relief from their tragic circumstances.

Suitcases in hand, we exited the airport into the humid, exhaust-choked streets of Aceh. As we looked into the faces of those round about, we were met with smiles. Such a welcome sight! Many of us had feared going into what was by all accounts a hostile province prior to our departure; filled with Islamic militants, closed to foreigners because of the overarching threat of civil war. While those accounts were true at that time, this was a place changed, perhaps forever, but certainly “for such a time as this”. And so we walked the sidewalk, greeted by the few that could speak English with kind words like, “America number one!”, “friend”, and “thank-you”.

Our taxi driver, a man in his early 20’s named Fizal, knew some English. He opened up to Steve and me as we traveled the strangely “quiet” streets. So many had lost their lives, that, sadly, traffic is not a problem in Banda Aceh. He spoke of his family- he was from the island of Nias, west of Sumatra. Yes, he had lost many in the tsunami, but not his immediate family. He and his wife had lived in Acehland for 4 years, and had no children (more on this later). Talk turned to matters of faith; he proudly proclaimed he was Muslim, but not a “fanatical”. Steve replied that he was a Christian. Fizal asked, “Are you a fanatical?”

Like Fizal, I too was shocked when Steve said “Yes!” Fizal was confused- had he used the wrong word? He clarified, “I’m not a fanatical- you know, like Osama Bin Laden- a fanatical. You are? A fanatical?”. Steve replied, “Yes, if being a fanatical means loving your neighbor as you love yourself. You are my neighbor. And I love you like I love myself (Fizal seemed uncomfortable, I know I was! J To me, it seemed risky talking like this. Too easy to be misunderstood by Fizal’s rudimentary English- was Steve a homosexual making a proposal? Sitting in the backseat, I was not quite “fearful”, but I certainly would have “changed the subject” if I were Steve. Thankfully, Steve was not such the shrinking violet! J) If my wife, if my daughters” (whew- way to go Steve- let him know that you are married! J) “were hungry, I would hope that they would be fed. Your people are hungry, so we have come to feed you. That is what Jesus the Messiah, Issah Mashiha, told us to do.”

Fizal was flabbergasted! “But Osama is a …” (he stumbled for the right word) “…murderer. He killed thousands of Americans.” “Yes,” replied Steve, “and to many Americans, Osama is a terrorist, an enemy. But Jesus told us to LOVE not just our neighbors, but even our ENEMIES. And so, if we see our enemy hungry, we feed him. If we see him naked, we clothe him. If I saw Osama hungry, I would feed him.” Fizal shook his head, not in disbelief, but wonder. I could see it in his face reflected in the rear-view mirror, I heard it in his voice as he said, “I have never heard of anything like this”. Indeed. Well said, Fizal! Such love, such wondrous love. My eyes misted; fortunately, we were at the “hotel”, and so we disembarked, shaking Fizal’s hand.

Bags unpacked, Fizal drove off. We registered at the formerly called “Kartika Hotel”… Allow me to digress… (whew- this is getting LONG!)

On the evening the tsunami hit, several Christians (many of them church planters who had been in Indonesia for many years, praying for the doors of Aceh to open) met. They pooled together some money, and with it caught a flight into Banda Aceh, where they met with people hoping to flee the destruction. Negotiations ensued, and in the end, Christian workers obtained a 50 room hotel from Moslem businessmen (some rooms even had A/C!). By first world standards, it would likely be a “POINT .5 star” hotel, but it was only a few blocks from the destruction of what once was Banda Aceh City. They quickly dropped the “hotel” status, and dubbed it a “logistics center”, which is certainly how it functions. Most (if not all) of the “faith-based” aid from throughout the world flows through this center. Day and night, trucks filled with supplies clog the parking lot. Inside, the foyer more closely resembles a warehouse than a reception area, with piles of rice and medical equipment cluttering walkways, but also providing much-needed “rest spots” for weary aid workers; many of whom, like us, drop in for a meal and a few hours sleep. The lounge consists of a large wraparound couch, on which flop teams of the newly-arrived volunteers. They are greeted by harried, hoarse and yet miraculously still efficient directors, such as our host Jay Deavers. Jay spends a few preciously-carved moments from his busy schedule to “de-brief” us, a term we come to know and love, even as we smirk inwardly at the “play on words” it conjures in our decidedly non-militaristic minds! J

Um, ME again, folks. We’ve got real trouble… I’m only on day 3 of a 17 day journey, and it’s taken this long, entirely TOO long for many of you who just want the highlights and a quick report. Rather than continue to ramble on, please allow me to post this to you, along with this link to my website, where you can see some pictures, etc. I WILL try and continue the “travelogue”, but will prioritize on putting together a “summary page” with a few pictures and a few stories. For those who LIKE to have all the juicy details, I’ll let you know when more updates are available…

Talk to you soon…

Melvain

F.R.O.M. Friends Reaching Out Ministries

F.R.O.M.
Friends Reaching Out Ministries