God and the Tsunami

It was a beautiful, sunny Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) morning in tropical Sri Lanka. Kohila Sanders was in the kitchen, mixing powdered milk for her three-year-old daughter when one of the orphan girls burst in, gesturing excitedly toward the beach.

“The sea!” she cried. “The sea is coming!” Kohila did not understand what the child was yelling about, but it sounded serious. She ran outside to look toward the sea, and her heart stood still. A giant, ash-colored wave was building, growing higher by the moment as the water piled up. Kohila ran to the bedroom where her husband Dayalan lay awake. He was thinking about the sermon he was to give that morning, but all thoughts of the sermon vanished when he saw the terror on his wife’s face. She echoed the girl’s warning.

“Come! Look! The sea is coming in!”

“Keep calm,” Dayalan soothed, “God is with us, and no harm will come to us unless it is our time.” But he had never seen his wife so frightened. What could possibly be that bad? He decided to check it out, but he was in no hurry.

Dayalan was a member of the Tamil ethnic minority in Sri Lanka. He was a United States citizen, living in Maryland with his parents and sisters, when he felt the call to be a missionary, so he and Kohila had come to this spot on a peninsula of Sri Lanka. With their life’s savings, they purchased a four-acre piece of land with the sea on one side and a lagoon on the other and built an orphanage which now housed 28 children of various ages. The villagers all called him Father Sanders. It was a busy life, but a peaceful one. In the next moment, all that changed.

Dayalan stepped outside into the palm grove and turned to look at the sea. And he understood his wife’s terror. A 30-foot wall of black water stretched from one end of the beach to the other – and it was rushing toward them with the sound of a thousand freight trains!

Galvanized, Dayalan spun around and shouted at the top of his lungs,” Everybody drop everything!  To the lagoon! To the boat!” He began running, snatching up a child in each arm. Staff members and children poured out of the buildings and ran to the lagoon, where a fence with a gate barred the way. Dayalan tossed the smaller children over the fence while the others rushed through the gate.

“Where’s my daughter?” he cried, looking around desperately. One of the older girls shoved the child into his arms, and he tossed her into the boat while older children and the adults tumbled into the launch. Usually it took about 15 minutes to get children and staff aboard, but this time, everyone was in the boat in ten seconds flat.

The outboard motor was always removed from the launch at night to prevent its being stolen, but this had been an especially busy weekend, with the Christmas pageant, Christmas services and a dinner for 250 guests, including a number of Hindu villagers. Dayalan had been especially tired last night, so he had – just this once – left the motor in place. Stefan, the boatman, yanked at the cord, which always required several pulls to start the motor. This time, though, the engine roared to life at the first pull, and the overloaded launch charged into the lagoon just as the massive wall of water broke over the orphanage with a mighty roar.

The frightened passengers watched in horror as the water smashed a garage, their new Toyota pickup bobbing to the surface. The vehicle crashed into a palm tree and then was washed away like a toy and swallowed it up again by the massive wave. The pickup was followed by the maroon van, which also smashed into a tree before being thrown into the sea. Roofs splintered and flew off buildings. A motorized rickshaw, caught in a whirlpool, spun helplessly in a circle.

Everything the Sanderses had built up for twenty years was destroyed in moments. Not only was the tsunami crashing in from the sea, but the raging river was pouring into the far side of the lagoon. Dayalan was sure that when the two currents met, the launch would be swamped.

The wave was about 15 feet away, and they were eyeball to eyeball with the wall of water. A Bible verse popped into Dayalan’s head: “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” (Isa. 59:19 NKJV).

Springing to his feet in the rocking boat, Dayalan raised both hands toward the tsunami wave and shouted, “I command you, in the name of Jesus Christ, on the strength of the Scriptures, to stand still!” And the mighty wave stopped, as though held back by an invisible hand. It did not hesitate long, but it was long enough for the launch to get to the far side of the lagoon. As they passed a young man struggling in the water, they were even able to pull him into the launch.

Dayalan thought perhaps he had imagined that the water stood still, but later he was approached by some villagers who had survived by climbing palmyra trees.

“Why did the water stop for a moment when it reached your land?” they asked. “Was it the density of the trees or the buildings?” Dayalan saw a chance for a quick sermon.

“There is no power on earth that could have held it  back,” he answered.” It was the power of God. I called upon God, and I commanded it in the name of Jesus, who 2,000 years ago commanded the waves, and they obeyed. He commanded the sea, and it obeyed. And this is the very same God. He did the same for us, and He gave us those precious few seconds that we needed.”

                The Sanderses lost everything they had, but they saved every life belonging to the orphanage. Dayalan’s sisters back in Maryland started a fund to help him rebuild. He and Kohila bought 25 acres farther inland, and although construction was delayed because of social and political unrest in the area, the couple and their staff were soon caring for 81 children.