The Methodist Church of Banda Aceh sits close by an inlet. Water cascaded through the church depositing tons of debris, washing away worship materials, ruining educational materials and equipment.

And yet, the pastor of the church and pastoral ministry students from an Indonesian seminary are hard at work cleaning up the building. It is a monumental job.

The water line in the sanctuary is 10 feet above the floor. A mangled automobile carcass has been deposited outside. Concrete reinforcing rods are strewn about, having been deposited by the floodwaters. The mud is thick, black and undoubtedly contaminated with disease-bearing organisms.

Twenty-seven bodies were found in the debris in front of the church building.

The pastor took a break from his cleanup work to talk to us. In a quiet voice he said the events of the last two weeks seem like a dream. He thinks sometimes he will awaken and it will not be reality, after all.

But, he also says it’s important for the church in this community to begin rebuilding as soon as possible. It is a symbolic act that will lift the spirits of the whole community. The church views its role as reaching outward to this community, many of whom have lost everything and need signs of hope.

The rebuilding of the church is not, therefore, an act just to benefit the church. It’s more important to give people hope. If the church rebuilds quickly, it will be a sign to the people that they too can take hope in the future once again. And they, too, may find the strength to begin rebuilding.

Sitting the in the sweltering heat and hearing of this kind of courage and strength gives one hope that recovery is within reach, and this pastor, the seminary students and the congregation embody hope, and in this tragedy, hope is a precious ingredient.

Banda Aceh — This morning the full force of the tragedy hit us as we drove along a road near the center of town. At the side of the road were three black body bags awaiting pickup.

We
had stopped and some of our delegation walked to the location of the bags and
prayed. On one of the bags was a water-damaged photograph of a smiling young
woman at a family celebration. It was a way to identify her, placed there by
one of the team who had recovered her
body.

Across the street a young
woman wearing a Red Cross vest prepared another black bag to receive a body.
She spread it on the sidewalk. The scene was so beyond reality that it hardly
seemed possible. Preparing body bags on the sidewalk. Bodies lying on the side
of the road.

Her colleague sat with
her knees drawn up, her face plunged into her
hands.

Down the road a few hundred
feet two young men stood in knee high water, manuvering yet another human body
from the debris.

I heard a news
report today that estimates the toll in Indonesia has surpassed 100,000 lives.
If so, then how will the toll be revised upward for the rest of the region?
From what I’ve seen, it’s hard to imagine that an accurate census will ever be
possible. It’s now into the third week and still this reclamation
continues.

As one small, but
inadequate way, to grasp the fullness of the tragedy, an accurate census would
be helpful. But, still, standing here by the side of the road, seeing the
preciousness and fragility of human life, the enormity of loss is so heavy to
bear.

The mind struggles to grasp
some hope and some meaning in the face of it. Jesus said God takes note when
even the sparrow falls. And he says the flowers of the field are clothed in
beauty by the Creator and yet it is their lot to wither and die. If God takes
note of these small pieces of the Creation, how much more must God care for and
value God’s children?

On this
roadside, the question is not rhetorical. It is fundamental.

Houston — The tsunami crisis will be remembered for many reasons: The number of lives lost, the huge number of persons affected, the loss of personal property and the broad geographical area affected. It is the largest natural disaster in many years.

These
are obvious. Equally important, but more subtle, is the role of digital media
in giving immediate information, empowering people to act and creating a sense
of community.

Immediacy — We have become accustomed to immediacy. As noted in an earlier entry in this blog, the news media were chasing after digital photos and videotape from people on the scene when the tsunami hit. Expectations have changed. I believe these changed expectations will affect how non-profit organizations tell their stories about humanitarian aid in the future. The practice of collecting information on-scene and reporting it days later will be less acceptable in the future. They will need to get word out about their efforts as the story unfolds.

People relied on a mix of media to stay abreast of the story. They wanted to see, hear and read about the story as it unfolded. In the future it will be necessary to function in multiple media to meet the needs of a media-saavy audience. Much more sophisticated communications plans are required to function in this environment.

Community — The tsunami response was remarkable not only for its magnitude. It is remarkable that this overflowing compassion occurred in a world that is divided by war, religious strife and ethnic division.

I believe people want to part of an affirming global community. But we don’t often have the occasion or the opportunity to express this except when urgent emergencies develop.

Our opportunities for congenial discussion are limited today, except in churches that have open hearts, open minds and open doors (no matter what the denomination) because polarization leads us to be defensive and protective, not expansive and inclusive. Polarization is, in my opinion, an insidious process that makes it harder to live in community with diversity.

Local media focus on local stories to the exclusion of global ones. Unless our national leaders speak forthrightly about the global community as Secretary of State Colin Powell did when he said instability due to lack of food in the tsunami-affected nations is related to U.S. security, we do not hear much about our interrelatedness.

The tsunami made us all aware of how fragile life is and how vulnerable we all are. In this understanding of our common humanity lies the seeds of dialogue about how we live on the planet and it gave us an opportunity to reach out in ways that bridge the poles.

I believe it should be part of the mission of the church to foster this kind of dialogue. We use the tools of technology to inform, create and sustain community. They are more than pieces of equipment and software programs, they are tools for mission and ministry.

Empowerment — The Internet empowers people in ways unknown to previous generations. It aggregates information, provides a means for individuals to act and gives direct access to story sources without an intermediary. Blogs from the affected area, for example, provided first-person accounts without an editor between the writer and the reader. On-line donation pages offered a range of giving options. The empowered individual could choose which site to use for making a donation and which sites to use for information with relative ease.

Digital media are directly related to our emotions and they provide us the means to act upon our feelings and beliefs.

In this mix, the message is critically important because those who communicate with clarity, simplicity and in accessible language will have a distinct edge.

This is why I believe the tsunami response represents a hinge-point in contemporary history. We’ve entered into a new day for storytelling.

Banda Aceh — To call this a wall of water is to understate what it really was. We forget that it was first an earthquake. Some of the damage in Banda Aceh looks to be the result of an earthquake. Pancaked buildings and twisted minarets on mosques, where water did not reach, tell of the initial shock when the earth moved.

Following
that, the water raced across the ocean floor at 400 miles an hour, scientists
say. That’s four times more force than the winds of a Florida
hurricane.

As it came ashore it
raised up and became a wall of water, and more. It sucked up chunks of
concrete, automobiles, trucks, railroad cars, shards of plate glass, steel beams
from buildings and tin roofing sheets. It was no wall of water. It was a toxic
killing machine.

I mention this,
not to cause more grief among the afflicted, nor to shock the kind readers of
this blog; but to point out that this was a traumatizing event the likes of
which we don’t have experience to
comprehend.

I’ve seen people so
traumatized and grief-stricken that they cannot articulate what they have been
through. I’ve heard others say they still can’t believe what has happened.
They hope to wake up and find it was all a bad dream. I’ve seen still others
who can’t even find words right now to
talk.

Every displaced person has a
story, each dramatic and heart-rending. The trauma will continue here long
after the news people have gone, and long after the crisis phase has ended.
This is an event that has changed lives
forever.

And it will take
generations to restore the land and re-build the physical damage. How long it
will take to heal the damaged lives is anyone’s
guess.

Words of sympathy seem almost
out of place because they can’t match the depth of the trauma. How can we say
anything meaningful to a mother who has lost her entire family? To the child
left alone? To the father who tried to save his son, lost his grip and will
never see him again?

These are the
stories. And it seems to me best to just be present with people right now
because words fail. But presence also speaks. Presence says someone cares,
listens, reaches out. In this there is some consolation. Not enough, to be
sure, but some.

The trauma will
continue to affect people, probably for the remainder of their lives. As Paul
Dirdak, head of United Methodist Committee on Relief points out, some will want
to return to their former homes. Others will not. Some will require the
presence of another to simply stand with them the first time they go back to the
place where this trauma began.

Of
course people are resilient and they will go on. But how could anyone who has
gone through this nightmare not be haunted by terrible memories? And, how can
any sleep in peace free of the trauma created by this horrific machine? It was
so much more than a wall of water.

Singapore — We are a global village and we are connected in our human vulnerability. This was the message of Singapore Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng, reported in the The Straits Times this morning.

We are a global
village and we are
connected in our
human vulnerability.

The message rings true. On the flight in from Tokyo I sat next to a campus minister from Southwest Missouri State University who has paid his own way to volunteer. Next to me on the opposite was a medical volunteer from Pennsylvania.

I am writing on a flight from Singapore to
Medan, Indonesia. On this flight, which is full, a volunteer wears a shirt
bearing the logo of the Redondo Beach Fire Department. A team of a dozen
medical personnel bearing vests identifying themselves as the NHIC Ilsan (South
Korea) Hospital Medical Services Team is
on-board.

A team of (mostly) young
people wearing t-shirts with International Service Partners from Austin, Texas
is headed for the disaster
zone.

This disaster has been a
global unifying event. It’s as if this tragedy has become an occasion to say no
to demonization and dehumanization. In the last few months we’ve hear often the
language of terror, of suicide bombers, of people reduced to easily defined
catch-phrases in media reports. And a few have demonized “those” different
from “us”. In this situation we see each other as human
beings.

I believe this outpouring of
compassion represents refusal to buy into this demonization wholeheartedly.
It’s as if the people of the world are saying, “Some of us are hurting and the
rest of us can help. Let’s do
it.”

Maybe that sounds overly
optimistic. It certainly is naive. But it’s a whole lot better than doing
nothing. So I’m willing to overlook naivete’ because the statement underneath
is so powerful.

That statement is
that despite division and discord we’ve not lost our sense of humanity. We may
not know how to articulate it, but we know we live in a global village. It’s a
small world, after all.

It is also a
statement that compassion is still a compelling value and people are willing to
act on it.

Some will even travel
around the world just to help others in distress. While we have real and
significant differences, we also have much in
common.
And on this understanding hinges a
global village and the hope that we can see beyond division and demonization to
a community of healing and
hope.

What we have in common is our
human vulnerability and our ability to help each other when one of us needs a
helping hand.

Wow, that’s naive.
But every plane I’ve been on these past 24 hours has been loaded with these
naive villagers.

I am writing from Singapore enroute to Banda Aceh with a delegation of United Methodist church leaders who will deliver antiobiotics to hospitals in the stricken area. We will leave Singapore on an early morning flight Jan. 12 bound for Medan, Indonesia. From Medan we will catch a small plane to Banda Aceh.

We will be carrying $100,000 of
antiobiotics. In addition, the Director of United Methodist Committee on Relief
will be assessing future services here as well as in other affected
areas.

I will be writing of this
experience from Banda Aceh as possible. We’re still uncertain about power
there, and, of course, access to the Internet.

It’s possible to paint a dark cloud on a sunny day canvas. For example, some are saying that agencies serving tsunami victims have more money than they can manage. My response is, “Yea, right. And we’re going to end poverty in southern Asia next week.”

It’s really not that simple. Ten days of
charitable giving won’t put an end to poverty that has dragged people down for
generations. The needs in this region will continue for years. This response
will move from meeting immediate crisis needs to rehabilitation to long-term
development. The price tag for that isn’t even determined yet. But we should
not be lulled into thinking that this first surge of generosity has provided all
the resources necessary to end years and years of endemic
poverty.

I hear the concern that
attention to this crisis will deflect giving to other equally deserving
programs. My response is that if this massive outpouring of goodwill proves
anything, it proves that we need to live with a theology of abundance, not one
of scarcity.