02/18/2005: Mending Broken Hearts

Just weeks after the tsunami desolated the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu, one of our GFA USA office staff members traveled there to view firsthand what was going on. He describes his experiences visiting a village in Tamil Nadu, with two GFA missionaries, Sathyan and Meshak.

Before I drove into this tsunami-shattered section of a village in Tamil Nadu, I felt that my heart was becoming numb to the heartache and suffering of the people. Another day of people with shattered lives living among shattered houses had overwhelmed and shut down my emotions. The people and destruction were becoming abstract to me, and I no longer felt anything.

Yet when we walked into what was left of the village, I heard the people's stories and began to see the residents as hurting and suffering individuals, not abstract numbers.

When I first noticed Meena, she was sitting on a pile of bricks and rubble that used to be her house, facing the sea. Her tears seemed like an unending stream, with no end to the grief that was causing them to flow.

Meshack, my translator and companion as I traveled Tamil Nadu, started talking with Meena and her husband and encouraging them. They had lost their only child, a son, who must have been about nine years old. Meena had been crying almost nonstop since she first learned of her son's death. Her grief was so intense that she couldn't even eat. The culture does not allow her husband the emotional release of public weeping. He is forced to keep his grief bottled up inside. He may have wept in private in some dark corner where no one could see him.

Meshack expressed words of encouragements taken from the Scriptures. At this point the GFA missionaries are just trying to encourage the people and build relationships with them. Their care and love is genuine, and I think the villagers sensed that in these men there is something special. I expect that sometime in the very near future, a small fellowship will be established here.

Meena expressed her appreciation to Meshack for coming and listening, and she asked him to pray for her. Meshack told her that he and Sathyan, an area relief work coordinator, would pray. Then Meshack talked with an older woman, Laxmi, who lost her entire family when the tsunami wave crashed through her house. Like Meena, streams of tears were falling from her face as she shared her struggles with Meshack. She also was very grateful that Meshack was willing to come from outside to visit and encourage her, and she asked for prayer.

Neither Meena nor Laxmi asked for food or any other items; they only asked for prayer. Everyone asked Sathyan and Meshack to pray for them, to remember them and asked them to come back. Both missionaries said they would be back often.

The people in this area are from several different religious backgrounds, yet the only people who have shown them any kind of care and concern are the GFA workers. It seems that their greatest need is to know that someone somewhere cares for them. The only light of hope and possibility for these people was brought to them today by Sathyan and Meshack.

When we returned from the village, Sathyan and Meshack prayed fervently for the people they met. Sathyan has such a strong burden for the tsunami victims that he is often in tears as he prays for them, and today his tears flowed steadily as he prayed on their behalf.

It is the love of Christ that motivates these brothers to keep on serving the emotional needs of the tsunami victims. Soon a bright light of hope will rise for the people in this village.