UM visit forges ties with Indonesian Methodists

United Methodist News Service
MEDAN, Indonesia—A United Methodist team’s visit to Sumatra has laid the foundation for a future disaster-recovery partnership with the Methodist Church of Indonesia.
Bishop Joel N. Martinez of San Antonio said he found Indonesian church leaders “genuinely pleased and appreciative” about the Jan. 12-16 visit. Martinez, president of the denomination’s mission board, led the delegation to see the aftermath of a Dec. 26 tsunami.
“We tried to listen to the church and get their perspective, and then we also were able to witness and observe for ourselves,” Martinez said.
Part of that observation included a tour of the devastated city of Banda Aceh and impromptu visits to camps for internally displaced persons.
Even three weeks after the tsunami, Martinez said he thinks “the full dimensions of the tragedy are not fully known.” He expects the price tag of the disaster to exceed initial estimates just as the death toll did.
Although the tsunami swept over 12 Indian Ocean nations—including Sri Lanka, Thailand and India—the delegation chose Indonesia to let Indonesian Methodists know that the greater Methodist family was grieving with them, said the Rev. R. Randy Day, chief executive of the mission board.
The island of Sumatra suffered 115,000 of the more than 162,000 deaths caused by the tsunami and the earthquake that triggered the giant waves.
“While we mourn the people who died in the tsunami, we’re also taking immediate action to care for the survivors, so the death toll doesn’t go higher,” Martinez said. That action included delivery of medicines that the Indonesian church can use in its relief efforts in 11 camps for displaced people.
The Rev. David Wu, a board staff executive and native of Indonesia, said he was impressed that the small church had immediately set up an emergency relief committee on its own, without asking for help.
“Perhaps bringing our church and their church together would create a greater energy, a greater hope,” he noted.
Day, said he is thankful for the initial generous response of United Methodists to tsunami relief efforts through the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Besides Indonesia, funds have been directed to Sri Lanka and India, and future work is expected in Thailand.