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Mans, I saw a PowerPoint presentation at church yesterday that showed the real side of what happened in Sri Lanka. My heart was absolutely broken somewhere midway. It started off with before and after aerial pictures of certain regions. In one area, there was a nice green community. Afterwards, it was a brown sandy wasteland, with maybe a few hut roofs popping out of the sand like rocks. Then, it got to the community. That was rough. They showed pictures of the bodies sticking out from underneath the wreck of a house, and the long rows of bodies in a morgue. This is where my heart broke with a loud crash. It was a strange feeling, one I have not experienced before. My eyes got watery, and I felt like weeping long for the people who died, and the families that are left. But I didn't. For some reason, I felt I had to compose myself and "save face". I don't think there was a single person in there that was not moved strongly by that presentation. At one point, for me anyway, I wanted so bad to look away. I wanted to walk away from the death that was projected on the white screen before me. But I felt I must face it, and not harden my heart to what happened. I did, and I think I have grown from it.

The pastor told two very interesting stories. The first one happened, if I recall, somewhere on the beach. Some people heard a noise inside a hut, and looked inside. A woman was smashing all the idols in her house, yelling "What good are you to me now?" Her gods had deserted her.

The second "story" was a family looking to the sea and mourning loudly their relatives whom had died. They said to the person who witnessed this and asked them "What is there to live for, when she will not protect us?" I suppose I should give some background. In the Hindu religion, they have millions of deities, and one of them is the goddess of the sea. They sacrificed to her, prayed to her, and she did not help them. She, like the previous woman's idols, had deserted them.