BPNews, Jan 5, 2005
Reporter: Christians have 'phenomenal opportunity to step up'
By Staff, Jan 5, 2005
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (BP)--He will never forget the lament of a daughter crying
over the body of her dead mother -- still half-buried under the wreckage of a transit
station a week after the tsunami hit.
He will never forget the miles upon miles of flat, barren wasteland that once were filled
with busy neighborhoods and villages.
And he will never, ever forget the smell of death -- everywhere.
At the end of a long, heartbreaking day (Jan. 4) of covering the utter devastation in
Aceh province in Indonesia, Christian correspondent "Alan Brant" (name changed for
security reasons) sat down on a couch, fought off exhaustion and tears, and reported
what he saw on a scratchy cell phone line. To listen, click on the following link or
paste it into your Web browser:
http://media1.imbresources.org/downloads/asx/Asia_Tsunami.asx
"It's just beyond comprehension," Brant said. "The Indonesian friends we were with
were pointing out places where [before the tsunami] you could not see the ocean --
which was a good 10 kilometers away. Villages and houses were there. Now you can
see the ocean. It's just a flat wasteland."
Brant was with a team of local Christians assessing the disaster. He also planned to
participate the next day in unloading and delivering two big trucks' worth of relief
supplies.
Once the first wave of immediate relief and rescue responders leave, "the local
governments will know what they're left with and what they're facing," Brant said. "At
that point, organizations like ours will know how to step in and help in a way that
produces results.... Virtually any aspect of aid and assistance will be needed -- food,
food distribution, medical, construction. I can't even begin to imagine how to
reconstruct this place. It's just gone."
Even in the major center of Banda Aceh, much of which has been destroyed, there
are places workers can't get to because of the amount of destruction – "both from the
earthquake because it's so close to the epicenter and from the tsunami that swept
through the town," he said. "The force of the water just destroyed everything in its
path. Boats are on top of buildings and bridges. Cars are all over the place, and the
smell of rotten corpses is everywhere."
Walking through the town, Brant and his co-workers came upon a destroyed
transportation station where hundreds of bodies still lay under debris.
"I came across a woman who I later learned had traveled in from another area of
Sumatra," Brant said. "She was standing there pleading, pointing to a pile of rubble
and pleading, 'Help, help, help ... somebody please help!' There was a corpse sticking
out and she was saying, 'That's my mother! I found my mother! Somebody please get
my mother out! There were maybe three or four guys working in hard hats and gloves
who were pulling corpses out of the rubble. But they just replied, 'There's nothing we
can do,' because [the body] was pinned by rubble. This woman just sat on the ground
in shock, rocked back and forth and cried. That's a scene that's repeated over and
over again."
Southern Baptists and other Christians already are giving generously to relief efforts.
How can they pray effectively?
"The most critical prayer is for the survivors, the people of Aceh, and the other
countries in Asia that have been hurt by this, but specifically for the people of Aceh,"
Brant urged. "This is an area of Indonesia that has been completely locked down for
the last 18 months to outside media and aid workers. For decades it has been
embroiled in a civil war with the Indonesian government. So this really represents a
phenomenal opportunity for the rest of the world -- and for the body of Christ -- to step
up and make an impact.
"It's an opportunity to [show them] there are people that love them and want to care
for them through this difficult time.... This will be a phenomenal time for the people of
Aceh to understand who Christ is."
That is Brant's hope for the living. For the dead, he broke down and cried as he talked
of the devastation, of the thousands of bodies still lying in pools of water and under
untouched rubble. Many entire towns and villages between Banda Aceh and the
western coast of Sumatra "undoubtedly are completely wiped out," Brant said. "You
have whole cultures that are just gone."
Before the grim body count is completed, "there will be multiple hundreds of
thousands dead."
Copyright (c) 2001 - 2005 Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist Press
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