Faces of Disaster

The following journal entry is from the day after I went to the East Coast to see the worst of the devistation in Sri Lanka. In a rare decision, I have decided to post it here for public reading. Despite the fact that I’ve now had almost a week more to process the events of this particular day of my trip, I feel as if this is the best summary of thoughts I can give at present.

3-9-05 East Coast (Martremonee?), Sri Lanka

So as always there is a desire to catch up on all that has happened in the last few days, but there is simply too much, and I’m not sure my written words would do justice to the images I have captured with my minds eye.

Lord, it is too much what I have seen. I have no way of grieving a destroyed village. I stand with feet buried in beautiful, warm sand, while the ocean tide laps around my ankles. Tropical beach and azure ocean as far as the eye can see. But through the thin veil of tropical palms is the haunting image of a village in which no brick and mortar wall could withstand the force of the now so docile sea. Closer inspection of the beach reveals rubble—not from the interior of Sri Lanka, but trees and branches from the destruction in Indonesia. But I can’t grieve this—I don’t understand it. My mind cannot wrap itself around the fact that 15,000 people lost their lives in just the beach area that I can see. What is 15,000?

My feet shuffle through sandy ground—and I wonder if the sand had always been there. UNICEF tarps, corrugated tin, and scraps of wood make temporary “houses.” Hastily built brick and mortar buildings, with tin roofing make a series of stalls that whole families live in. The smell of cooking fires and the stench of 900 people living in close quarters inundates my nostrils. The translator tells us the stories, but none of them pierce the protective (and ever thickening) callous around my heart. The children follow us in groups—desperate—for what, I am unsure. Desperation hangs in the air, as thick as the smoke and stench, but who know what will quench it? But I can’t grieve this—I cannot grasp 900 people destituted—ripped from their once normal lives. What is 900?

I find myself in tears over things, which among such tragedy shouldn’t even cause me to blink. But I do; I cry over the translator who tells me that for 3 days after the tsunami, he thought it was the “END.” But he hasn’t lost his family, his house, or his business. I cry when the husband, lounging listlessly with his friends, tells us that he lost his wife of 9 months. We try to convey sympathy—he responds with a feeble but genuine thanks. But still I feel, “he should have some joy; His house stands intact, in sharp contrast to the destruction surround it. My eyes well with tears, as we try to communicate with 4 teenagers who are using a small hammer to chip away at what is left of their house. To what end? And I cry often in the home of an extended family. They used to live in 4 beautiful homes, now they are crowded into the home of the brother. They are lucky—they have a nice house to stay in, and they did not loose any family members to the deluge. But still I cry. I almost loose it as the wives rush cold bottles of pepsi into the room—in an act of hospitality unrivaled by anything I have seen in the States. As if 15 middle class college students from America are in desperate need to slake their thirst at the expense of a family who has lost so much. I cry often over the beautiful little girl who was saved as her mother scooped her up in her arms as the ocean swallowed the church. I can only begin to imagine the horror of the young mother as she was swept away, clutching the child. How many other mothers and children did not live to tell such stories? My heart goes out to the wife who weeps as she tells her story—her prayers were answered as she and other members of this family cried out to God in desperation that He would spare their family. And I cry as the grown sons (husbands to wives mentioned earlier) shove their camera phone into my hands and scroll through the pictures they had taken the day after. Pictures of bodies strewn among the litter of their house. Decaying and stiff bodies. Women, children; men whose clothes had been stripped off by the force of the water. I thought I had seen horrible things before. I thought I knew what it was to be in the presence of a dying patient or a dead body. But the horror of these pictures remains unparalleled in my experience. Why do they want me to see these horrible, sick pictures? Why did they take them in the first place? Why scroll one-by-one and explain in faltering English each slide to a college student from across the globe? But, it occurs to me, of course they do. The actions of these two grown men cry out—grieve with me, understand what I have gone through.

These are the things I can understand. These are the things that will make me cry. How do you grieve for something so big, so tragic? I believe it is so tragic that I can’t even begin to be properly sad for it. Maybe over the course of the next few months, I will be able to process it, to review this mental video tape I have taken of the vast destruction, but for now I’m almost in a state of denial. And so I must cry for the simple things—for things less tragic. Smaller personal tragedies. The newly-wed who has lost his bride. The experience of a family amidst utter chaos and suffering. These things I can begin to relate to; theses are the things which fit into the model of my grieving. I cannot relate to 15,000; it is too big. It does not fit my model of understanding. I think I can begin to understand what it must feel like to loose a wife. I think I can begin to relate to an overwhelming sense of dread. But a destroyed village? Loosing everything—home, family, employment in a simple 10 minutes? 200,000 dead? Not a chance, not now.

Standing on the beach, I realize that this natural disaster is not about 15,000 dead! What is 15,000? What is 200,000 dead? I realize that it is about the loss of a wife, the loss of a home, the psychologic trauma inflicted on two adult men who must move corpse after corpse (their friends, neighbors?) from the debris left of their home.

The warm wind blows, and I wipe the sweat from my brow. The tropical sun beats down on this paradise. I think to myself, “we do a great injustice to these people when we describe their situations with facts and figures.” Numbers don’t describe devastation. If we can’t report personal stories, then we should at least use generic terms. The tsunami was/is NOT about 200,000 dead. It was about mother loosing child, husband loosing wife, and family loosing home, work, and neighborhood. It’s about sitting happily in the church pew singing a chorus one minute and waking from what must seem like a nightmare of swimming, struggling, to find that your life has been turned upside down. The rest of the world likes numbers; they are fun pieces of trivia, which we can tally, collect, and finally, when the newness wears off, forget. Stories are real. Stories make us a small part of the suffering. Stories at least begin to do justice to those who live and die in this hellish tragedy.

I pick my way through the rubble and pray “Lord show me how to pray in this situation.” Somewhere deep within His voice speaks about the reality of the current situation. The present day reality is that the tsunami tragedy is not about the dead, but about the living. It is not about the rubble, the destruction, and the images of a child-corpse mouth opened like a deep grave; it is about the sad, down-trodden, listless, and tear-streaked faces of the survivors. THESE are the faces of tragedy! Sure, we must remember the dead, and even weep over their loss—but our sympathy, concern, and action must now be directed to those who live on. They are the ones who suffer. The Lord would have us direct our care to them. We face no the tragedy of the living, not the dead.

I sit cramped on a bus—obviously not made for over-sized Americans—as we make our 12 hr. trip across the country—back to the capital city on the west coast. We bump and jolt, screeching to stops to narrowly avoid the trucks coming around blind corners on a narrow road that weaves through this 3rd world jungle. I have an affinity for this world that I cannot explain—mountains, tea fields, shanty houses, crowded markets. My mind races ahead with the thoughts, while I desperately try to force my hand to organize the wild thoughts. I feel like exploding; I want to scream—at the bus driver for taking us on such a bumpy road, and at my noisy teammates, who have found laughter to be the best method of coping. I grip my pen tightly, wishing I had finished this journal entry at 5:30 tea, and try to proceed in orderly fashion even though my mind is miles ahead of my hand. As I paint the sickening reality on these pages the glints of hope and the brief flashes of joy amidst the sorrow keep shoving through the darkness. I resist writing about them because I don’t want to strip the disaster of its heartbreaking potency, and I absolutely hate the “happily-ever-after” cope-out. But the stories and the two verses plague me—refusing to let themselves go untold. So I recall the family mentioned earlier praising the Lord for all He has done in their lives—including giving the 72 year old grandmother strength to run a mile as she fled the tsunami. I remember the children who played happily as we entered the refugee camps—a glimmer of hope, unexplainable. And the words from Scripture that the Lord spoke to my heart as I survey the devastation. “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:21-23). “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).

Yes, these thoughts stand as glimmering paradoxes against the bleak darkness that I have tried to describe. They don’t make it all better. They don’t stop me from thinking of the disaster. No pacifier to stop my crying. Naturally, when I stood among the ruins of the tsunami, doubt crept in. Where was God on December 26? He that parts the seas, calms the wind and waves, and He who walks on water amidst the storm. I’m not sure. But on March 8th, He was there, whispering quiet words of hope to a college student from America.
Lord, may I be equal to the task of sharing this hope, of helping others to see it.