Sri Lanka in Q1 of 2007

A core reference point for the Sri Lanka Outreach team was the christmas time tsunami of 2004.

I wanted to write and thank those of you that went on after me and continued to support the Sri Lankans in their bright and historic future.

In December, about a month ago - I was able to attend a meeting of Christian Sri Lankans that were all in the United States at a conference called Urbana. This small gathering of 30 Urbana participants allowed for the culutral history and Christian future to be communicated. The point of this note is to state that many lives were touched through the heroics of the Sri Lanka Outreach Team. Mostly positive, and always true, the feedback spoke of mothers who's children were helped by our teams gave light to hope from abroad.

I'm thankful for all of you that gave our your finances, of your time, and mostly of your heart.

Vegas Thornton

1st container

THe 1st container of goods headed to Sri Lanka is on the way. I will put up photos and tracking links so you can see the status of the container for the distance to Sri Lanka.

Help Support Tsunami Families From America

As I am only one of a few hundred US American able to arrive, assess, and assist in tsunami relief, I am appreciative of how the entire team is and has been able to help.

Memorial Day is soon in the US and I wanted to thank those, like my father who died giving the ultimate sacrifice and live in out hearts- and those serving keeping American free and safe. I appreciate the security offered that allowed us to help those not of our own kind, belief, and country.

I want to announce that containers offering non-monetary assistance to those working in the area are ready to be loaded.

Dropoff locations will be in San Diego and Las Vegas. If you or someone you know has a location to place a container for a few days, that would be willing to be a drop off location, please email me at Vegas@SriLankaOutreach.com.

I am in Las Vegas, please keep the team still in Sri Lanka close to your thoughts. THey expect to return to San Diego in Mid June.

Thank You,
Vegas Thornton
Director
Sri Lanka Outreach Team

Update

We welcome two new members to our team - Tiffany Hirokawa and Emily Chou from California - who will be with us for the next two weeks.

For the past week we've been working at a tsunami camp about 20 min south in the city of Angulana. Last week they finished around 60 temporary shelters and are currently working on building about 60 more. Also, along with helping with construction we've been helping revamp a run down school inside the camp.

To be honest, is seems at times that the work we do here is useless and unappreciated. Other people can do my work... I'm far from undisposable. But I was amazingly encouraged twice in the past few days. Yesterday after we finished with construction Janet (a Canadian who's worked at Angulana for several months) mentioned that the work had not picked up that day at all until our team had arrived and encouraged everyone to work. It reminded me that not only are we getting work done but we're telling the locals, through our actions, that we love them... and that love, in turn, inspires them to work. And today we worked at the Dutch Reformed Church (we haven't been here for about a week) and Sri, the guy in charge or relief work, gave us T-shirts and thanked us profusely for our work.

To give anyone who's considering coming our a sneak peak... our typical day consists of 1) a group morning prayer/worship session 2) working for 4-8 hours (location changes all the time and duration is dependant on if we need to take care of other things such as Visas, bank, shopping, etc.) 3) eating out 4) relaxing at the apartment playing cards or watching West Wing (the San Diego team left all 3 seasons of it... glory halleluyah). We work hard during the week and play hard on the weekends.

Still Going Strong

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Dustin and I'm currently here in Colombo updating from an internet cafe about 10 tuk tuk minutes away from the team apartment. I'm a 2nd year UC San Diego student am taking the spring quarter off to bless the people here and be rocked by them. Though I've only a week under my belt, the experience has been amazing.

I'm updating mainly just to give an update as to what the teams have been doing here and to remind everyone that there are still many areas of need. 3 months after the tsunami and it seems that the only ones who remembered it occured are the families living in tents, those that lost loves ones, and those helping to ease the pain.

A few days ago we took a 3 hour train down south about 110 kilometers to a city called Galle. The train runs directly parellel with the ocean and almost never loses sight of it and so along the whole ride we could see the tsunami damage. I thought that 3 months later and most of the rubble would be picked up and rebuilding would be through it's first phases, but in most cases there were just leveled buildings and no construction. It's crazy to think that we were traveling on the west side of the country which was not hit nearly as hard as the east side.

Once in Galle we talked with several locals who had lost their homes and I specifically remember one conversation inside a man's home that was still barely standing. He explained what had happened and then showed us the water marks which were about 10ft above the floor. Right above the water line he pointed out his dogs footprints.... it was an amazing/disturbing site.

For the past two days we've been working at the Dutch Reformed Church packaging and sorting supplies for various camps located accross the country and tomorrow we're joining one van which is delivering about 140 boxes to a camp just south of Galle. The boxes all contain various essencial family items such as a blanket, lantern, stove, kerosene, pans, a bucket, utensils, and a few other things. These all take time to prepare, sort, and store and so working with about 10-15 people at a time we are able to get through about 50-60 boxes an hour.

I'm glad to be here. The members here are awesome. The weather sucks... but... being from San Diego I'm spoiled. The locals are incredibly nice and hospitable.