Tsunami victims pull together to rebuild

Ecumenical officials
report on relief work
in Sri Lanka, Indonesia

United Methodist News Service
When Shanta Premawardhana visited Sri Lanka on behalf of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., he was amazed by the resilience of its people.
Although the Dec. 26 tsunami wreaked havoc along the Sri Lankan coast, residents showed a strong determination to rebuild, he told the National Council’s governing board Feb. 14-15 in New York.
“Despite the devastation, there were smiles,” he said.
The country has pulled together across ethnic and religious lines, said Premawardhana, a National Council staff member and native of Sri Lanka. He expressed concern about foreign Christian organizations that proselytize while dispensing aid. Such action puts the fragile unity in jeopardy and makes local Christians targets of Buddhist extremists.
“What happens is that churches get attacked, and pastors get killed,” he explained.
After consultation with the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, Premawardhana said he thinks U.S. Christians—especially Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists and Presbyterians—can help their Sri Lankan counterparts in several ways.
For example, he noted, four villages where more than half the population is Methodist were destroyed.
The Rev. John McCullough, a United Methodist pastor and chief executive of Church World Service, the National Council’s relief arm, told the board he expects a minimum 10-year recovery period for the tsunami-stricken region.
As an example, he cited the devastated city of Banda Aceh in Indonesia. As many as half the population of 400,000 may have perished in the tsunami.
“A community like Banda Aceh is going to have to be completely rebuilt,” he said. “They will, in a very real sense, be rebuilding on a cemetery. That’s why trauma counseling is so critical.”
Because Church World Service has its largest overseas operation in Indonesia, it is prepared for the work there.
“We have more than 100 persons on staff, and almost all of them are Indonesian,” McCullough said.
Both Church World Service and the United Methodist Committee on Relief are working in the region as part of Action by Churches Together, an alliance of faith-based relief organizations.
“We appreciate opportunities to work cooperatively and collabor-atively (with United Methodists), especially in light of a disaster of this magnitude,” McCullough said. “The participation of United Methodists in our collective effort is critical.”
More information on relief efforts by both agencies can be found at http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor and www.churchworldservice.org.