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Eleven-year-old Ismael Gumuda weeps his tragedy. Sorry to be alive, he would have preferred to be dead and feel nothing. Every time he remembers his brother he cries again. How can he ever get the images out of his mind? By day he sees them constantly. At night they return as nightmares. He can't forget the day that the gigantic wave tore his 7-year-old brother from his arms.
They where at school, practicing their part in the upcoming New Year's celebration, when they heard the terrible roar of a thousand thunders. That noise mark the end of his life forever. "We turned around and saw a giant wave, higher than the school building, crashing on us", he says, wiping away his tears. "I grabbed my brother and held him as tight as I could, but a wave separated us. There was nothing I could do to help him. He looked at me terrified, wanting me to help but I couldn't. The water is stronger than I was. I survived only because the wave carried me and set me down at the foot of the mountain but my brother disappeared; he was swallowed up by the sea. I miss him a lot and I pray for him".
The teachers at the school where he studies have noticed that Ismael is not the same since the tsunami. He has lost weight, and he is always remote quite. Ismael is one of the students at Ban Tlaynork who took part in a program of psychological rehabilitation sponsored by UNICEF in Thailand.
The early morning hours of December 26, 2004, will remain forever in memory of those who experienced its horror. Even though the years may go by, they will continue to feel shaken and perplexed.
Until that day many people had never heard of a tsunami. Suddenly, now everyone is aware of a frightening reality. What name can you give to a destructive force that, in a fraction of a second, tore away islands, made cities disappear, and and ended nearly 200,000 lives? Where could anyone run to find shelter from a force that was equivalent to the explosion of a million atomic bombs like the one that destroyed Hiroshima during World War II?
The morning of horror shook the planet to its foundations. The killer blow, a seaquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, set in motion wave action that started in the extreme northern point of Indonesia and swept along the coast of Thailand, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. More than 6,700 kilometers from there it killed hundreds of people on the east coast of Africa and then continued thousands of kilometers more, sending huge waves crashing onto the shores of Chile South America.
People understood, in a tragic way, how small they were when faced with the fury of nature.
The trauma experienced by the world as 2004 came to its close was only a foretaste of a 2005 filled with natural disasters. Weeks after the tsunami of Indonesia a series of hurricanes brought floods and death to Central America and the United States. hurricane Katrina caused intensive damage and left the U.S. city of New Orleans under water for weeks. Sludge reeking of death replaced the famous French ambiance of the city considered as the home of blues and jazz.
On October 8 of that same year another gigantic earthquake shook Pakistan and India, killing thousands, wounding tens of thousands, and leaving millions of people without shelter. Some days later, Hurricane Stan would kill more than 70,000 in Guatemala and southern Mexico, and the Yamatec Volcano in El Salvador would erupt, leading to still more deaths. At least 7,500 families had to evacuate.
According to the Center for Research in the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), affiliated with the World Health Organization, just from January to October of 2005 almost 100,000 people perished from natural disasters. At its headquarters in Belgium, CRED maintains a database of world disasters. According to the organization, the number of disasters recorded has increased notably since 1900.
The year 2005 could have passed into history as having the greatest number of natural disasters. But the next year recorded even more natural cataclysms. To complete the somber picture, Marko Nikola, secretary general of the International Red Cross, stated that 2007 had 20 percent more catastrophes than 2006. Researchers currently calculate that disasters affect 250 million people every 10 years. In half of these cases the element of destruction is water.
Water is life. If there is not enough life ceases. But to much can kill. The worst water-related disaster took place on the Yellow River in China. It killed about four million people. According to the IPCC "it is probable that extreme meteorological episodes will increase in frequency and strength during the twenty-first century due to climate changes".
Face with this reality, people everywhere are asking: What is happening to our planet? Has it gone mad? When will all of this end? The answers are even more macabre. Many religious people are preaching divine wrath and destruction of the world. The astrologists are blaming the influence of the stars, while the scientific community attributes everything to global warming provoked by human mismanagement of the earth and it resources.
"Global warming" is a relatively new expression. Science uses it to explain the earth's increase in average annual temperature. Nobody questions that the Earth has become warmer in recent decades. Specifically, the process began at the start of the Industrial Revolution when society gave more importance to productivity than quality of human life.
Gases, released by factories, motor vehicles, forest fires, and other industrial and personal activity have been both destroying the protective ozone layer and creating a "greenhouse" effect that traps more of the heat from the sun's rays. As a result, the earth's temperature is increasing, glaciers are melting, and the sea level is rising.
Since 1961 the sea level has crept up at a rate of one to two millimeters per year. The IPCC calculates that if the temperature continues to rise at the same rate that it has recent decades, the sea level will be up between 20 to 149 centimeters by the end of the century.
Seven of the warmest years on record have been recorded since 2001. The northern hemisphere has about 5 percent less average snowfall than in 1966.
As a child I sometimes traveled from Lima to Jauja, the city where I was born. The journey involves the highest rail line in the world. the blankets of snow covering the distant peaks always fascinated me. Perpetual snows covered the summits of the beautiful Ticlio range of the Andes. But the last time I was in that part of the Andes i felt heartsick to see the hills barren. Nature seemed to be dying. I heard a sad moaning caused by the cold wind that blew over the mountains. And I thought to myself, The scientific reports we have been hearing are real. Some assume that the changes won't affect us, because we are far from such places. But the transformations are rapidly spreading.
It is undeniable that the planet is warmer now and that humans are partly to blame. The scientific community believes that, at this point, further increase in temperature is inevitable. The sea level will continue to rise at least during the present century even if tomorrow we could completely eliminate the emission of the gases causing the greenhouse effect.
As it has become aware of the danger, the world has turned its attention to the environment. Ecology has become a sort of religion. In schools everywhere---from kindergarten to university---students are learning about taking better care of the planet. But thins don't seems to be improving. In fact, the Bible says they will grow worse and worse, and that fact is one of the signs announcing the coming of Jesus.
Al Gore, a former candidate for president of the United States, received the Nobel Prize for peace in 2007 for his documentary film Earth in the Balance, regarded by the United Nations as "an effort to disseminate a warning to the world about man-made climate change". The film shows the human concern for saving the planet, but also remind us of humanity's inability to see what is really about to happen.
Sami Soanki, director of the Max Plank Institute for Solar System Research located near Gottingen, Germany, says that in the past 60 years, in addition to the human tampering with the environment, for un-explainable reasons the sun itself has gotten hotter, contributing to the warming of the climate and consequent increase in natural disasters.
Unexplainable reasons? Jesus said it many centuries ago: "There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken". Doesn't that sound like a description of our day? There really is "dismay among nations", and "perplexity at the roaring of the sea".
And yet we need to be careful and not confuse things. The fact that we see such natural disasters does not mean that God is causing them. He explains the nature of His relationships of the human race. '''For I know the plans that I have for you', declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope'''.
That is good news. God will not allow humanity to destroy itself. Because He loves us He will intervene in history and put an end to human mistakes and errors. Doesn't that tell us that the glorious coming of Christ awaits us just over the horizon?
We have no need to fear. The love of God can fill our hearts with hope. The Christian hope is assurance, certainty, and confidence even when from a human perspective there appears no way out.
Many years ago, when my little son was 6 years old, he was lost in the city of more than 2 million of inhabitants. My wife and I ran frantically from place to place, trying to find him. Having only recently arrived in Brazil and were still learning Portuguese, we wept in description. What to do? Where to turn? The child has totally disappeared. To find him in the midst of so many people would be something like finding a needle in a haystack.
Seeing our desperation, a guard told us: "The police are looking for your child. If he is still in the downtown area, they will find him when the businesses close".
And so it was. At 6:00 that evening the number of people in the center of the city began to diminish. Employees returned home after a long day work. The streets began to be more deserted and the shadows of the night began to be more deserted and the shadows of the night began to fall on the city like a black sheet. A cold June wind began to blow.
We continued to look, and to our great joy, we found him. there he was, seated on an abandoned box, playing with a stone, unaware of the suffering of his parents. Weeping, we embraced him covered him with kisses.
Later I asked him: "Weren't you afraid"?
"Afraid? Why?" he asked innocently.
"When children get lost they are afraid", I told him.
He opened his eyes with surprise. "I wasn't lost, Daddy. I was just waiting. Weren't you going to look for me"?
Look around you. Do you see the darkness closing in because of natural disasters? Earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes are spreading fear. The forecast of science are terrifying. Even in the midst of such fearful expectation and dark omens I want you to know that Jesus will be arriving soon, and that He is coming to look for you. There is hope. The eternal morning is already starting to dawn. As the day grows brighter, read the promise that God has given: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow with you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you".
The answer is yours alone.
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