 A
Wave of Compassion for Zakaria
Zakaria can’t remember how he ended up lying in a tent at Operation Blessing’s
medical clinic in what was left of Lamlhom village. The last memory the 45-year-old tsunami
survivor had was an enormous black wave of water rushing towards him. “I saw cars,
humans and logs floating in the water,” he recalls. “I tried very hard to
break out from the strong current, and as soon as I got out I felt pain all over my body.
I could not even sit down. My badly injured body was muddy and smelly.”
Shock set in as the Indonesian man tried walking for help. He woke up as a young man
cleaned the gashes on his torn body. But there were more critical concerns on the husband
and father’s mind. “I want to recover and look for my wife and two kids,”
he said. “I don’t know where they are now. I just leave them to God. I want
to keep looking and will not stop till I have news of them. I just want to know the
condition of my family, if they were still alive or died at sea, so that my heart does
not keep wondering about their whereabouts.”
Zakaria is one of the thousands of survivors that OB Indonesia has been able to care
for in a wave of compassion over the last three weeks. Our medical clinic in Lamlhom
village has been busy treating the sick and broken since opening their tent doors. Every
day the team listens to nightmarish stories from their patients. In just a few minutes,
their way of life was turned upside down as the tsunami washed away their loved ones,
small homes, jobs and few possessions.
Our teams are in the thick of bringing emergency medical care, food and supplies to
Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The situation is critical as relief continues.
On Wednesday, January 19th, the Indonesian Health Ministry said the tsunami killed 166,320
people in Indonesia, jumping the tragedies’ death toll to 212,611. In the midst
of grief, countless people are hurt, hungry and homeless – surviving with the
clothes on their backs. Join the wave of compassion to help them.
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