Tsunami brings Sri Lankan home to meet Jesus
By Goldie Frances*
Baptist Press (12/27/05)
Tsunami brings Sri Lankan home to meet Jesus – (BP)
COLOMBO , Sri Lanka –Silva wants his daughter to remember Dec. 26, 2004, to know for certain her young life is a miracle for which he is forever grateful.
I want her to know how her mother [saved] her in the tsunami - not her father, because I was away, he said.
Having worked the past six years in Saudi Arabia , Silva, 32, had been home only once for a short visit after his daughters birth. That changed Dec. 26, when a friend called to ask whether he had heard about the tsunami. He hadnt.
Whatever I earned, everything was gone in five minutes to support his family back home, he said. I am keeping positive hopes that it will come back. Not overnight, it will take time, but I am hoping God will help me.
Silvas wife, Ranjani*, tried to outrun the tsunami waves while carrying their only child, a 17-month-old daughter. The force of the waves proved too strong for her, as rushing, murky water covered the earth beneath her feet. The mother and daughter fell into a shallow well. Ranjani struggled to get out of the well, crying out for those around her to help. But in the frenzy of panic, no one responded.
Ranjanis husband had been gone from the country for several months. In her terror, she wondered whether she would ever see him again - and whether he would ever see their daughter a second time.
As Ranjani continued to yell for help, an elderly woman suddenly appeared. The woman somehow found a stick and helped pull Ranjani and her daughter out of the well. They found refuge on the roof of a two-story building until the raging waters subsided. Then, like so many others, she made her way to the higher ground of a nearby Buddhist temple.
I am lucky to see her again, Silva said. I thank God because [Ranjani saved] my daughter.
When Silva talked with Ranjani by telephone and heard her account of the horrendous events, he decided to write a letter to his daughter.
In the letter he wrote: Thousands of people were swept away by the water. … I must pay my gratitude to your mother because shes now given you to me a second time in my lifetime - once at birth and once in the tsunami.
Silva returned to Sri Lanka and his family last January after friends collected money for his plane ticket. Reunited with his wife and daughter, he had no job to provide for them. He found temporary work translating for English-speaking disaster relief teams - Southern Baptist workers and volunteers.
For months, Silva quietly listened to conversations. He watched Southern Baptists interact with the Sri Lankan people and care for them. He observed them give thanks to God in prayer.
*Names changed for security reasons. Goldie Frances is a missionary writer serving in the South Asia region.
