SRI LANKA INITIAL REFLECTIONS

My time in sri lanka was exceptional...a really sweet
time of fellowship with those i worked with and a
blessing to see what has happened since we started the
tsunami relief project in february.

a few things that struck me--while i was there and
even now i feel small... to see the destruction and
to swim in the ocean that took so many--to make sense
of what it must have been like -- at some points i
felt like i was having a little post tramatic stress
and could sense anxiousness in my own heart about
whether it could happen again...and even this week
with the london bombings i was reminded that the violence
and loss of human life goes on around the world...we
are small and fragile whether it is a tsunami or a
terrorist... so like i said i felt small...very much
not in control and very fragile in this very large out
of control world. events like the tsunami remind us of
our humanity , our fragility as human beings--as much
as we would like to think so we are not in control.
but though i am small and what i have and who i am can
be stolen at any moment of any day i realized again
that if all was lost--jesus is enough. that may sound
easy and maybe even cliche but the simplicity of it is
profound . i am small--god is bigger and big enough.

the other thing that kept occurring to me was the song
that i learned in sunday school--you know the one--the
wise man built his house upon the rock--the foolish
man built his house upon the sand--but my thought was
that the poor man built his house upon the sand and
floods came up and the house on the sand went splat!
in sri lanka one house might be standing and the one
next to it flattened with only the foundation left.
even still it is the poorest who remain in tents and
along the train tracks with nothing and no rights to
rebuild what they lost because they did not own it in
the first place...while much progress has been made so
many still suffer...the poor were made poorer and the
middle class poor by the tsunami--the poor man on the
sand does not have a tsunami waring system....this is
not a completely developed idea yet so if the above
does not make sense i am sure i will talk about it
more in my next prayer letter.

lastly, even in all the destruction, i still walk away
with hope. hope becuase the homes that we have the
opportunity to build with habitat in sri lanka are not
just a sub standard replacement to what was lost but
something new and better. we have a unique
opportunity not just to rebuild the nations devastated
in the tsunami to to BUILD them...to see the injustice
and desperation that was there before and say we will
not let what was be the future...i hope for the people
sri lanka and i hope for those who yet to receive the
help the need.

continue to pray for the tsunami affected
nations--there are years to come of building was lost