Everytime I look at the news, the Indian Ocean Tsunami death toll just leaps higher and higher (Monday=20,000, Tuesday=40,000, Wednesday=100,000, Thursday=125,000). I have this thought that if I don’t look or read the news, it will just stay at the same number … if that were only true. God be with each and every family member who hears about their loved one. Even though it’s just calcuated as a number, these are individuals that people love and God loves.
When we were talking with some missionaries in the area last week (before all this happened), they were saying that many of them do not swim and are very fearful of water. They have fear of water gods as well as many Muslims are very well-covered and would not dare to go into the water with less on. Because of this, most of them don’t know how to swim. Some people were saying that if this happened in the US, not as many people would have died because they wouldn’t have drowned.
This reminded me that in my college (small liberal arts college), one of the graduation requirements was to swim the length of an olympic-size pool. I remember when I was receiving a tour of the school and hearing that someone who gave a significant grant to the school lost their wife because she didn’t know how to swim. So, he gave the money to the school with the condition that everyone receive swimming lessons until they could graduate knowing how to swim. That was the only part of my graduation requirements that I aced.
God, please be with the families that have lost loved ones and those that are still awaiting to hear. We pray that your Church would rise up and be the hands and feet of Jesus!
The first news I hear is 100 people on late Saturday/early Sunday morning…on Monday, I hear the toll is at 22,000. I leave civilization for 3 days and my heart breaks to hear and see what is going on.