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Navalady Children's Home

SOUTH ASIA BATTERED

CHILDREN'S HOME DESTROYED - SRI-LANKA

BOXING DAY 2004

"I am speechless. Words cannot describe what we have been through in the last four hours. There is total destruction around. Dead bodies are floating in the water all around me. Our entire village of Navalady has been destroyed," the Reverend Dayalan Sanders told me on the telephone from a remote village on the east coast of Sri-Lanka.

It was Boxing Day afternoon for me here in UK. I went cold inside and wondered what had happened to all the orphan children of the Samaritan Children's Home in Navalady whom we had come to know and love over the last 6 years.

EYE WITNESS ACCOUNT

It was Sunday morning, 26 December, 2004, at the Children's Home in Navalady near Batticaloa on the eastern coastal belt of Sri-Lanka. The senior children were preparing the chapel for morning service. They swept the floors, arranged the floor mats, the songbooks and the prayer books. Others were just getting ready and making their way to the chapel compound. Steffan was warming up the engine of the fibreglass fishing boat in readiness to go across the lagoon to collect other church members. The time was 0845 hours. Suddenly there was a thunderous, almighty roar, the like of which they had never heard before. They all stood paralysed.

These children have lived through civil war, are experts at detecting different aerial sounds and able to differentiate between the sounds of low flying menacing helicopters and destructive Sri-Lankan Air Force fighter jets. This sound was different. Pastor Sanders was just coming out of his prayer room when he suddenly saw the sea coming in huge waves, taller than the coconut trees in the open compound. He yelled out for evacuation and all the children and staff scrambled into Steffan's fibreglass fishing boat in less than 15 seconds. Thirty-two of them sat clutching each other, petrified. Some began to cry, most were dumbstruck but all were in fear for their lives. The water level rose. The sea had come over the land and the lagoon and the sea had merged.

THE DAMAGE

From the precariously rocking boat they watched with horror as 30-foot waves lashed the sides of their four-acre compound. The beach cabana in which I and several others had spent pleasant nights counting the stars was lifted off its foundation and tossed into the air. The newly constructed dormitory in which this summer the Children's Team from UK conducted a weeklong programme for the children in the village simply folded and was blown away. The guest rooms, which the UK Hope Medical and Dental team occupied was next in the path of the strong waves and sustained considerable damage. The two large pick-up vehicles were ripped out of their garages, thrown 20 feet into the air, tossed about and ultimately sucked into the sea. The faithful little trishaw three-wheeler was flung high into the air and bobbed all the way out to the sea.

As I write this on Boxing day night, Pastor Dayalan Sanders, his wife Kohila, two- year old daughter Haddassa, his entire staff and all the orphan children are physically safe. They have taken refuge in a small church building inland. They are cold, hungry and in a state of shock. They left just with the clothes they were wearing when the waves struck.

Dayalan returned to the site in the evening to survey the damage and salvage any belongings. There was nothing left. All personal effects have been washed away. They are left without a change of clothes, toiletries, dry rations or money. All paper work, documentation, cash and cheque books have been washed away. Together with some of the senior staff he worked until dusk trying to rescue people who have been drifting on rafters.

All that is standing in the entire village of Navalady is the small chapel of the Samaritan Children's Home with the little neon cross on the roof and three framed scripture verses on the front wall, and the children's dormitories at the back.

RESPONSE

We in HOMSA UK have reassured him that we shall endeavour to do all we can to support them in their hour of need. We have pledged to send a large sum of money immediately by swift bank transfer. The inner core of HOMSA UK held an emergency meeting on the morning of Tuesday 28 December at 10.00 am to plan a strategy for Disaster Management. They need our help both now and in the long term. The Children's Home is just one of numerous other equally needy situations that have arisen today in Sri-Lanka and South Asia.

HOMSA came into existence in 1984 after the vicious ethnic riots of 1983 that plunged the country into a state of civil war. There were a thousand people killed in a week. This scenario is entirely different and of a much greater magnitude and significance now. Can we still remain relevant today, by bringing HOPE to people disadvantaged by the violent force and destruction of the tsunami waves? This is not an ethnic conflict nor is it a religious or class divide, yet the challenge and the call to respond is the same.

On this Boxing Day I recall the message of Christmas - Immanuel - God with us, and I do believe that God is in the midst of these people who have lost everything and are in a state of shock and despair. I do believe He calls us to come alongside these people in any tangible way possible. If you feel you would like to join us with them, in bringing hope, relief and comfort, we would like to hear from you.

Cheques should be made out to HOMSA and sent to either of the addresses below. UK taxpayers can increase their donation by signing and returning a Gift Aid form. This enables the charity to reclaim 28p in every sterling at no extra cost to the donor. Please may we urge you to use this form.

On behalf of the people who have lost much today. Thank you and God bless.

Dr Sam Muthuveloe Boxing Day 2004
General Secretary
HOMSA - Hope Outreach Ministries South Asia - Registered Charity No: 327898
21, Lower Stonehayes,
Gt. Linford,
Milton Keynes
MK14 5ES.
UK.
Contact Telephone UK -01908-668829

TSUNAMI TIDAL WAVES

A massive earthquake took place at the northern tip of Sumatra in Indonesia, which was the worst of its kind for 170 years recording 8.9 on the Richter scale. The movement of the earth plates in the core of the earth sent cataclysmic shock waves, resulting in earth tremors and tsunami tidal waves of seismic proportions from its epicentre. The waves travel along the seabed at a speed of nearly 600 miles per hour, undetected by aerial view of satellites and causing no disturbance to cruise liners on the surface of the sea.

SOUTH ASIA AFFECTED

Several countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Southern India, Maldives Islands and Sri-Lanka have reported death and destruction in the wake of the Tsunami waves that badly battered their shorelines. Numerous winter tourists to these tropical paradises have lost their lives in the twinkling of an eye. It was so sudden, there were no weather warnings and no-one could have prepared for this calamity. Nations have been taken unawares and paralysed by the horrendous damage to buildings, services, transport and communication. The human cost, in terms of loss of lives and emotional trauma experienced by the survivors, one will never know.

SRI-LANKA

The Government estimates over 6000 people died in the spate of just those few minutes when the tsunami waves battered its 900 miles of eastern and southern coastal beaches. Whole villages have been swallowed up into the sea by the waves. Sand carried by the waves has been thrown across the roads and remaining buildings to heights of 4 and 6 feet. Power supplies have been disrupted. Water mains and sewerage systems have been damaged. Transport is at a standstill. Mangled human bodies are strewn everywhere. A sense of deep grief and hopelessness has gripped the entire island nation. National disaster has been declared. Both the President of Sri-Lanka and the Leader of the Tamil Tigers have appealed to the international communities for urgent assistance.