ATLANTA – Anwar had never seen anything like it. The earth rumbled. A half-mile of the ocean receded. Men and children rushed onto the exposed sea floor, gathering handfuls of fish flopping around in the sand.

Word spread quickly, and people came from town to get a glimpse of the beach as it never had been before.

“Then we saw a massive white wave on the horizon heading toward shore,” Anwar said. 

Anwar jumped on his motorcycle, and raced home – desperately trying to reach his wife and baby before the wave did.  At home, his family and the neighbors were standing outside assessing earthquake damage. They had no idea what was coming until they saw it. Then, it was nearly too late.

The mighty wave penned Anwar and his wife against a house, eventually trapping them inside, where they would float on an armoire as the water poured in and filled the house. Another six inches of water and Anwar and his wife would have been among the more than 200,000 that lost their lives on Dec. 26, 2004.

“Indeed, he was a lucky man – particularly to not have lost any of his immediate family in this disaster as so many did,” said one of CBF’s field personnel who responded to the Southeast Asian tsunami.

Stories like Anwar’s have made this tragedy come alive. Stories like this put a human face on one of the biggest natural disasters ever recorded and prompted Fellowship Baptists to respond in unprecedented ways. With nearly $2.63 million given to provide immediate and long-term recovery, CBF field personnel began work immediately to help recover and restore homes and lives.

Three years ago, the survivors that were hired to remove debris were among the few able to earn money in the tsunami’s immediate aftermath.  Medical clinics helped injuries heal, and tents gave refugees a drier place to stay. Boxes of food and clothing helped replace what more than 2,000 families lost. Water purifiers supplied 3,000 refugees with clean water.

For months, field personnel worked in the rubble – among what was lost and those who lost. 

“Now there is nothing,” said one survivor. “We have come back to look…to see our children’s clothes, to see their toys…to remember our children who were washed away….we don’t even have their bodies to bury or know where their gravesite is. The sea took them all.”

Field personnel eventually switched their focus to long-term recovery efforts.  They dug water wells, improved sanitation and rebuilt a canal that enabled farming to start again. They repaired several schools and provided school uniforms, shoes and supplies to more than 2,000 students. Job training centers were built and fishermen were given fishing nets so that they could restart their businesses. They repaired a road to a fish packing plant and cleaned fish and shrimp ponds that helped boost the local economy. Houses were built, Bibles were given and orphans were supported.

“I think we do well to remember that there are still people without homes, people who lost their entire families,” said another one of CBF’s field personnel. “For these people there is no ‘getting back to normal.’ Their lives were forever altered on that day.”

And while life for survivors in Southeast Asia will never be the same, three years of relief in four countries and nearly $2.63 million in donations has made a difference. 

“I never knew how much love could be given by people to people that they have never met,” said another one of CBF’s field personnel.

Relief work continues, and field personnel have been preparing for another major earthquake, which many geologists have predicted. They hope pre-disaster education, training locals to build earthquake resistant construction, and other preparations will help if predictions are correct. 

“There is still struggle, but everywhere you look you see evidence of hope and improvement,” said one of CBF’s field personnel. “There is still much work to be done, but much has been accomplished.”

CBF is a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.