Canadian Mennonite
Volume 9, No. 02
January 24, 2005

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What if…we had been on the beach on Phuket?

MaryLou Driedger of Steinbach, Manitoba, currently teaching in Hong Kong, was vacationing with her family in Thailand when the tsunami struck on December 26. The following is from her report.


What if? Those two words have gone through our minds hundreds of times as we think about our experience on the Thai island of Phuket where our family spent our Christmas vacation. We were untouched by the tsunami that devastated the coastline of the island.
Driedger family members look at the wreckage on Phuket. The man in the striped shirt is Chris Duester who teaches at a Christian school in Korea.

The Mangosteen resort where we stayed was high on a hill and a number of kilometres from the ocean. We were protected by three islands directly in front of our site which took the brunt of the waves. We were urged to remain in our hotel where staff continued to serve us politely and calmly. We had all the amenities, plenty of food, drinking water and perfect weather.

It was a surreal experience to watch the BBC coverage and realize that all around us such horror and devastation were occurring. As we read the newspaper stories, and as some of the tsunami survivors began to trickle into our resort looking for places to stay, we started to comprehend the scope of the tragedy. It was then the “what ifs” began in our minds.

What if we had gone to the Sofitel Hotel in Khao Lak? We almost did. A new travel agent suggested the resort to us—it was right on the beach and had lots of sports activities the kids would enjoy. Dave planned to go book the resort at lunch one day, but some unexpected tasks at the school interfered. Later that day, our regular travel agent e-mailed details of a package at the Mangosteen Hotel. Although it was a little pricier and not right on the ocean, Dave chose it out of allegiance to our old travel agent.

The Sofitel Hotel was completely destroyed by the tsunami. More than 500 bodies have been found inside so far. What if we had gone there instead? What if our children hadn’t slept in? We talked of heading down to the beach at 10 a.m. the morning of the tsunami, but opted for the 11 o’clock shuttle to the ocean when our kids slept in. The tsunami hit Phuket at 10:30.

We had visited the beach the day before the tidal wave and were able to see the devastation just before we left on the 29th. A woman staying at our hotel had been on that beach with her children when the tsunami hit. They survived the first wave by wrapping their arms around trees, the second because friendly Thai people whisked them away on their motorcycles, and the third because intuition told the woman to get off the motorcycles and push her children up a hill just before the final wave hit, washing the motorcycles out to sea.

What if we had gone to Thailand a day earlier? We had planned a snorkeling trip to Phi Phi Island our second full day in Phuket. We opted for a December 25 departure, instead of December 24, because our pastor asked if our family would sing at the Christmas Eve service in our church in Hong Kong. Had we left earlier, we would have been snorkeling the morning of the tsunami. There are only two buildings left standing on Phi Phi Island now and several boats carrying swimmers and divers to the island have not been located. We could easily have been on one of those boats.

Our experience in Thailand has reminded us of how fragile our lives really are. As we sat in the Phuket airport waiting to fly home, I looked at the masses of people around me. Some were crying, some were in wheelchairs, countless numbers were bandaged or covered with bruises and cuts, others had crutches and casts. Many were without luggage, passports or money.

The man who operated our shuttle service from the airport in Hong Kong greeted us warmly. He put his arm around Dave and said, “I see God has protected you.”

I’ve thought about that statement so much. I know many of our family and friends in Hong Kong and Manitoba were praying for our safety. Of course, we are so very grateful and have thanked God countless times that we were safe. But what about all those people who died on Phuket?

I have no doubt that many of them also had friends and family praying for them. I’m sure that many of them called to God in their time of peril pleading for rescue, but they perished. I cannot believe that God had anything to do with such horror or that God deliberately chose to protect our family rather than another.

One of our grade seven students from our school in Hong Kong was holidaying in Phuket with her family and is still listed as missing. Yvette was staying at the Sofitel Hotel. Other students and a staff member vacationing on Phuket have been reported as safe. Why were some of us saved and others not? I don’t think there is an answer to that.

Our pastor and his wife here in Hong Kong called immediately upon our return. They said that perhaps God had saved us because He had something important left for us to do in this world. I’m not sure I can accept that either. Didn’t all those people who died, especially the children, have countless gifts to contribute to the world?

I do think, however, that having so narrowly escaped death we all feel a renewed responsibility to make our lives count for something, to do important things for God in this extra time we have on earth.

I do not believe that the tsunami was an act of God. I do think, however, that as people care for those who have been so hurt by this act of nature, acts of God will be taking place.

At Tao Fong Shan (Mountain of the Christ Wind), our church here in Hong Kong, we always end our fellowship meals after the service by singing Ube Caritas: “Wherever compassion and love are found that is where God is.” Our prayer is that the devastated countries of southeast Asia will feel God’s presence as they experience the love and compassion of people from around the world who are reaching out to help them.—MaryLou Driedger

The writer, her husband Dave and sons Joel (25) and David Paul (19), are all members of Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach, Manitoba. MaryLou and Dave have been teaching at the International Christian School in Hong Kong for two years. Their sons, and Joel’s girlfriend, Karen Leis of Saskatoon, joined them for Christmas.

Tsunami curriculum

Sally Ann Gibson, a teacher in Manitoba, has created “Wake of the Wave,” a teacher’s guide on the recent Asia disaster, for grades 3 to 7. Gibson called Mennonite Central Committee Canada to volunteer after the Asia earthquake. She was inspired to act after witnessing her own children’s reactions to the images on the news. MCC encouraged her to prepare a study unit. The unit is available without cost or restriction at www.tsunamicurriculum.org. It can also be accessed at www.mcc.org. Gibson feels it is important to respond to children’s fears in times of crisis, and to make them aware of global issues.—From MCC Canada release

Call to Prayer

God of Compassion:

We cannot imagine the horror, the powerful destructive force,
the uprising of the sea and the shattering of the sands,
the enormous and awful death that has engulfed our world.

We have no adequate words;
We do not even know how to come to you in prayer;
Our hearts are breaking.

But in our brokenness, in our poor lament,
we do come before you.

For you alone, O God, can fully know
and fully mourn each loss.
We can but join with you in sorrow.

Be present with all who suffer,
and give us grace to enact your loving heart,
in acts of concrete and sacrificial generosity.

In the name of the one who wept over Jerusalem,
Amen.

~Mary H. Schertz




Greetings from the new Managing Editor

Editor’s note: Margaret Loewen Reimer, Canadian Mennonite’s Managing Editor, is leaving her position at the end of January with our deep thanks for her 31 years of service. I am glad to introduce Ross W. Muir who will fill the position. He will be the only other full-time employee at the magazine (in addition to me) and will play a key role in bringing a high quality Canadian Mennonite to you that is both a blessing to the church and that spurs each of us to greater endeavours (as he says below). I’ve asked him to introduce himself to the church.

Upon learning that the position of Managing Editor of Canadian Mennonite had been held by one person—Margaret Loewen Reimer—for more than 30 years, I told Timothy Dyck in my application that I hoped I wasn’t being like the fool rushing in where
Ross Muir (wearing the hat) is surrounded by Grade 1 students at the Unyama Internally Displaced Persons Camp in northern Uganda, where a civil war involving the abduction of children to act as soldiers and sex slaves has been going on for nearly two decades.
angels fear to tread. But after a lengthy period as a newspaper journalist and editor, which I left in 1999 to pursue a theological degree, I have been feeling the pull to put my experience and education to use for God and his kingdom in some form of journalistic enterprise.

That tug of God has remained since my graduation in 2002, during which time I have worked for short stints again in the newspaper and trade publication industry, and as a communications writer for World Vision Canada.

My life in journalism really began in 1987, when my wife and I moved with our young son to Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario. My plan had been to work on some creative writing projects and live in relative isolation for a couple of years, but God had other plans. I introduced myself to the local newspaper publisher shortly after arriving on what the locals know simply as “the Island,” and found myself conscripted as a proofreader. While I had worked on a couple of Christian newsletters while living in Toronto in the mid-1980s, this was my first foray into paid professional journalism.

I went on to be a freelance reporter and photographer, and after a year I was hired by The Manitoulin Expositor as its first full-time reporter. In 1995, the editor left and I assumed the role for four years.

As a newcomer to the Island (unless you were born there, you’re always a newcomer to the locals), it became clear very quickly that the chief aim of the paper and its writers was to tell the Island’s “story:” to cover the issues, the events and the people who defined Manitoulin Island and its way of life in an engaging yet truthful fashion.

As with our move to Manitoulin Island, I am now a newcomer to Canadian Mennonite and the Mennonite church and culture. Born into a Fellowship Baptist family, I have worshiped and served in Convention Baptist, Nazarene and independent evangelical congregations since my coming to personal faith in Jesus Christ in 1972.

I see my role as the denominational publication’s new Managing Editor as being a facilitator of its current cadre of national and regional correspondents, and, in time, a writer of the Mennonite story myself.

What is the story of the people of God? From my recent studies at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, where I earned a Diploma in Christian Studies and a Master of Theological Studies degree, I believe there are two main chapters to our story. Like Abraham of old, we are blessed. But we are not blessed merely for our own sake alone. We are blessed to be a blessing to others. To put it in New Testament terms, we are saved to serve.

One of my favourite quotes is by David Stendl-Rast, who says, “All the joy of heaven is yours for the taking—no, for the giving of yourself. That is God’s kingdom and conversion. That is what Jesus preached.”

In practical terms, then, I see Canadian Mennonite continuing its tradition of proclaiming that we are truly blessed as the people of God and spurring each other on to even greater endeavours by profiling those congregations and individual Christians who are used by God in the giving of themselves to bless others—whether within the church or in the wider world.

I pray that, in my new role, I will prove to be a blessing to Canadian Mennonite and its readers, as Margaret has been in the past.—Ross W. Muir

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