I spent the month of September in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the church has now grown to over 400 adult members! The most encouraging thing about this church though, has been their response to the tsunami disaster that hit Sri Lanka Sunday Morning, December 26th.

It took me three days to reach Pastor Dishan DeSilva but by the time I got through he had already organized 150 leaders out of the congregation who have volunteered to help in the disaster relief. Forty of our men have volunteered to help rebuild homes and they are going down to the stricken areas in rotating teams. They have already received an offering from the congregation members, collected blankets, clothes, food and water and organized the first team to go down to help in the relief effort. Danny Ost, a missionary statesman from Mexico, once told me that the best way to help the poor was to build a church. I saw that principle in action as our local church mobilized themselves and in their own initiative, reached out to their fellow countrymen.

None of our congregation members were lost in the disaster but some of them have lost family members and friends. Pastor Dishan shared with me that the entire nation is in a state of shock and that much of their efforts of late have been to work to console those who have lost loved ones. The church has a solid staff of five full-time workers, all supported through the income generated from the congregation.  We have appointed our administrative pastor, Peter Herft, who is an English speaking Sri Lankan national, to the task of supervising the distribution of the relief funds we are receiving. 

Bethany World Prayer Center gave $60,000 toward the relief effort in Sri Lanka and I have had another $10,000 that has been committed so far. We are focusing our efforts on rebuilding homes. Rather than give funds, we are purchasing building materials and delivering them directly to families who have lost everything. We have a solid contact in the national government who is helping us to coordinate our effort with the other agencies already at work and by working with him we will be able to purchase building materials at cost.

The area we are focusing on is the same area that saw a wave of violent persecution against the church last year. The help we are giving is an opportunity to turn the other cheek and show the love of Christ and the people are responding with gratitude. - Rick