Faith rather than fear

I was at Sunday lunch with friends visiting from Shanghai when I got a cryptic text message: "Earthquake Indonesia. Tidal wave Thailand." It caused some amount of concern, but not enough to spoil our lunch.

That was before we found out exactly how serious and how destructive the earthquake and tidal waves or tsunamis were. As television reporters started broadcasting from the actual sites of destruction in Thailand and Sri Lanka and images filled the screen, we began to realize that this was a disaster like nothing we have seen before.

Indescribable. Unimaginable. Terrifying. There are hardly words to characterize the situation. Here in the newsroom on Monday, our banner headline kept changing as the death toll rose–from an initial 18,000 to 21,000 to 23,000 in a matter of less than an hour. It was a terrible watch.

By Tuesday, as reports came in from an ever increasing area of destruction–from the center of the earthquake in Sumatra, through Thailand and Sri Lanka and India, all the way to the African coast of Somalia and Tanzania–the number of confirmed deaths soared. By near midnight Tuesday, as we write this, the number stood at an astounding and chilling 55,175, "with officials warning the figure was likely to rise steeply", said the AFP report. In Indonesia alone, the count was 27,174.

Other reports warned of possible disease on a large scale as water sources are contaminated, sanitation facilities seriously compromised and survivors face a serious lack of potable water, food and medicine. Even as the international community pledged aid and rushed relief goods to the devastated areas, the task seemed insurmountable.

My colleague commented that death and destruction of this magnitude belong to ages past, part of history and seems all too unreal in this day and age. In hindsight experts speak of early warning systems and other means of preparedness which perhaps could have lessened the death toll.

As the world comes to grips with this catastrophe that respected no borders or religions or ethnicities or economic status, we are reminded yet again that there is a realm beyond human control, that no matter how advanced and sophisticated we may think we’ve become, there are things way beyond our grasp, things that ask us to have faith–faith no matter what, in a Creator who holds the world in the hollow of His hand.