Christmas Tsunamis The death toll has now risen to 58,000, and is still rising rapidly, since the attack of the killer tsunamis on Sunday, Boxing Day.

This few years have been terrible - with bombings, attacks, wars, SARS, bird flu... and just as we are celebrating Christmas, and in hope of a brand new year - this happens.

I am very grateful to be in Singapore, where such tragedies have been gently avoided, and we, Singaporeans, are sheltered and protected in every sense. The death toll may merely be just a statistical figure to some. A statistical figure which does not mean anything to them.

But when I watch the news - CNN, BBC, CNA - the images just breaks my heart. Children crying over dead mothers. Mothers crying over dead children. People scared. People running away. People losing everything over night.

I heard of this account where this family of six were at the seaside, when the tsunami came and 5 out of 6 members were washed out to sea, with the father watching helplessly.

And something in my heart stirred.

Many in Penang, Aceh, Phuket, Sri Lanka, India, Somalia, the Maldives, etc have been directly affected by it - either dead, injured, lost a love-one, or simply there to witness the horrors of it. Everyone of them has a heartbreaking story to tell.

And it terrifies me.

What if I had been there?

If i were the father, watching helplessly, as all the other 5 family members washed out to sea, what would I do?

Please, anyone who reads this blog, pray for them. Pray for these people who have lost everything through the tsunamis. Pray for the people who are still missing. Pray for the relatives and friends of the missing, or dead. Pray for the dead, that their souls may come to rest.

Use your heart to feel for a minute. Just one minute. Think, and feel with your heart, the heartache that these people feel.

Don't just let the death toll be another figure to you. Devote this one minute of your life to them. Its not too much to ask.  ¶ Thursday, December 30, 2004