Exloring Life Eternal

I have finally made it to the computer to write about some of the things that have been happening. It has been 3 weeks today since the tsunami hit. Today we went back to Kata beach where the wave hit 10 minutes after we left the beach and gave thanks to God that he spared our lives. Now it is obvious to us that we are here for "such a time as this " to serve people who have many needs, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

It is difficult for me to write this because if have seen so much and can not express the trauma, the grief, the greed,and the injustustice that I have seen. Mike and I have been busy day and night trying to need the needs of people and mobilize other who are willing to help. Here is our story. We went to the beach Sunday morning to take the dogs for a swim. Elise, our 12 year old, likes to sleep in so we decided to leave her home. We arrived at the beach and played in the water with our 3 year old,Emily and 2 dogs. After we had been there about 40 minutes the water began to recede. Mike light heartedly said "hey where did all the water go?" knowing that there was never low tide at that beach it was strange! We made a quick decision to go home,and left within 5 minutes. by the time we arrived home the wave had struck and there were panicked neighbors with family members trapped in some of the beach front businesses.

We knew we had to go and help. We left the girls home and drove to a beach property Mike had done some work with to check the damage. The sight was awful. Car piled up debris everywhere......and no people! The place had been cleared out except for bands of looters grabbing what they could. We knew this was not the place where we could help and went direct to the hospital.

There were line of people all around Phuket International Hospital, but when we went it was overwhelming. There were wounded people everywhere. Most of them were Europeans. Most had swim suits on, no money, no passports and no where to go to. When we volunteered to help the Thai director had no idea what we could do. With his permission we took over the non-medical needs and began to care for the people looking for lost family members and finding places for them to stay. Mike organized a whole team of volunteers to visit patients, find out there needs and make sure no one was overlooked. The Thai staff was unable to deal with the language barrier and they were glad for the help.

These patients were so thankful to have someone to tell their story to, to hold their hand as they waited for news of missing loved ones (unable themselves to go searching because of wounds), and to hold mothers as they sobbed over the loss of their babies. We witnessed the joy of families who were reunited. Such joy and sorrow all wrapped into the most intense 5 days of our lives!

We moved on to the next felt need of the small Thai village that had been badly hit. We are now directing an effort to rebuild this closed Moslem community.We have volunteers flying in from everywhere to help. The response of the people was very cold at first. But as they see the progress of the work and the effort to help, they are warming up. They also see they are not high on the priority list to get government aid. As we go out into the community and ask the people what their needs are, we tell them that this is a "people to people" project. We have no big funding or organization. As money is sent to us, we will build a house, buy a fishing boat, or help the small business reopen. We want to see the whole community restored.

The needs seem never ending. Our family is exhausted,but it is difficult to stop when so many have no where to live and no income to support their family. We see aid spent in the big tourist areas and others are very neglected. Pray for wisdom and we try to mobilize many to come and help, find $ to do what needs to be done and maintain our family through all this pressure.

Thanks for your prayers.

(From Mike & family in Thailand)