Sri Lanka Tsunami Relief Update

Friday, January 28, 2005

Navamanie Update

Marsha and Miriam arrived safely home on with no problems along the way. On the first leg of the trip we even had room to lay down. It is interesting because Marsha had wanted to go home right after Christmas, but was told there was no room on flights from Minneapolis to Amsterdam until the 16th of January. In hindsight, she is glad she didn’t go home earlier in light of the tsunami and church contacts and opportunities in the first two weeks of January that were not available earlier. God does know best and arranges our circumstances. They enjoyed traveling with Bob Oehrig, (friend and colleague from Daystar), who was, quite by chance, on the same flight, God even arranged that they were sitting close together. The last flight, from Doha to Colombo was packed, crowded and noisy. Doha airport, which is very small was a zoo. Qatar Airways is not as nice as Emirates or Sri Lankan Airways.

They had no problem checking the extra bags, everything arrived intact and there was no trouble with customs. They didn’t even open the bags. Thank you so much for your prayers.

We have been adjusting quickly and are very busy. We launched right away into our regular activities as well as the Alpha Course where Ron and Marsha are leaders. The tsunami has affected everyone. Many organizations like YFC and Campus Crusade have suspended their normal activities to allow staff to work full time on the relief work. At any time you can go to various churches (including our office) and volunteer to pack food supplies or household items to be delivered to various camps or cities. Most of those affected by the tsunami are either being returned to their damaged (but livable) homes with some basic necessities, or put in small, short term tent camps until their homes can be rebuilt. This will relieve the congestion at the temples, churches and schools that had been housing them up to now. The health system in Sri Lanka was able to cope with the immediate threats of disease, and as I shared with many of you, this has not been a problem in the camps as the WHO and UN had predicted.

An estimated one thousand children are orphaned. The hope is that most of these can be placed with extended family, but many will either need to find long term solutions through orphanages or adoption. Our church has an orphanage in the central part of the country on 27 acres. We are looking at what is needed to put that back into operation after a long legal battle that was recently decided in our favor. Again, God’s timing is perfect. Pray that we would be able to get things in a usable condition there. This would be a place where we could possibly use work teams and some of the toys and money given will go to this project.

Our church also provided trauma counseling training to people working in the affected areas. Please continue to pray for the people who have been affected by this tragedy, that they would be able to rebuild their lives.

On Wednesday (26th, one month since the tsunami) we took a trip to Matara to deliver supplies and relief materials from our church to various camps along the way. We visited one area which was totally devastated, near the place where the train disaster took place where 1000 people were killed. The Buddhist temple is on a knoll about 1/2 a mile inland, everything up to that point was completely leveled. Hard to understand the force the water must have had there. Met a man at this camp who saved his three grandchildren but their parents drowned. We left two of our pastors there to distribute school supplies we had sent. We then had lunch at a hotel and diving school where we brought some school supplies they were to distribute. Two tourists had died there. The manager and the diving teacher were organizing relief because he said he needed to do something to keep busy.

From there we went to Galle, where we helped distribute school kits which we helped pack and pay for through funds given by the people at Colonial Church of Edina. This was an immediate need that we saw that we could help with because of the money that many of you have given. We then delivered some equipment to Matara where we have a church that was flooded, but miraculously no one from that church was even injured. Our pastor in Matara and his family are traumatized. He is not able to do ministry and he feels so bad about it. He said with tears in his eyes, it is such an opportunity, but I don't know if I can do it. Pray for Lionel and Padma and their children. Two of his children are doing important school exams this year and they lost all of their notes and are having a very hard time concentrating on their studies. They are still afraid and not sleeping. The water in their house was over 8 feet deep. Because they are in the fort it didn't have the current that leveled buildings and pulled people out to sea, but so many people drowned around them, there were dead bodies everywhere, you can imagine how awful that would be. Praise God they were all okay. The children want to move further away from the sea. Can you blame them?

We were constantly amazed by God’s protection and timing on this trip. I know that many of you are covering us with your prayers. We were able to arrive in Galle just in time to participate and take pictures of the school pack distribution. While returning, we assumed the pastors would have finished much earlier and taken a bus back to Colombo, but just five minutes before we passed that place they called to find out where we were. They had a number of problems and didn’t finish their work until 6:00 p.m. so we were able to pick them up at just the right time. We got back to Colombo at 9:00 p.m., tired and very sad by the destruction we had seen, but hopeful by the attitudes of people along the way.

Continue to pray that we will be strategic in our assistance to the people who need help and wise in our witness. Most Christian groups are sharing goods and love, but not making an issue of our message at this time, especially in light of the problems of the past. If I can just quote Ajith Fernando of Youth for Christ in a recent email: “Sadly some who have come from abroad to Sri Lanka seem to be insensitive to
the local scene and are disregarding the instructions of their Sri Lankan Christian hosts. By engaging in forms of witness which could adversely affect the long-term witness of the church, they are compromising the considerable credibility Christians here have earned through their sacrificial service. Unfortunately the press is highlighting some of these indiscretions.” Please pray that we would be wise and those who come would increase our credibility, instead of hindering it.

Thanks for praying for Alpha. The organizers here are amazed at the response, but I am not because I know many of you are praying for us. We have close to 70 people, and many are non-Christians. In Marsha’s group is a Muslim man who is a fashion designer, lived in Manhattan, but has now moved back to Sri Lanka. She also has the father of one of our small group members, for whom we have been praying over the past six months. There is also a Buddhist woman who came to our church because she heard our service on the radio on New Year’s Eve. Roshi is doing a great job. I can tell that the prayers of many in the U.S. and the prayers of our organizers here are really paying off. Please keep praying. I know Satan did not want us to do this, we had so much trouble organizing it. Now I can see why. Pray about our Alpha weekend. Because of the tsunami we have had trouble finding a place large enough for all of us without going too far away. As it is, it is going to cost a lot more than we thought. Pray that the funds will come in to help those who can’t afford the weekend.

Oh, I am sorry this is so long. I will try to write shorter emails in the future. If you would like a report of specific relief activities our church has been doing, please let us know and we will send a separate report. We will only report on things we personally do in our regular updates. One way we will be helping the relief efforts is by writing proposals and reports for donors. We are still looking for opportunities to distribute the toys you sent. Please pray that we will find the right situation to make the best use of the things you have given.

That's it for now.
Blessings in Him

ron, marsha and miriam navamanie

email: navamaniemrm@mac.com