Tidal Wave Story
From my Brother Kyle:
There was a girl named Crystal who came to our Bible Studies at our house last year and became a friend. She is now a missionary in India who we support. Her mission team was at Phuket Island when the tsunami hit and are all alive with some pretty amazing stories. Jade knows quite a few of the people on the mission team. Crystal was her room mate at UCO. Here is an e-mail Jade got from the team with some pictures they took.
Kyle
--------------------------
Dear friends,
You may or may not have known that we spent Christmas
on the Island of Phuket, Thailand on Patong beach.
Yes, that is the island (and beach) you have been
hearing about on the news. I am writing to let you
know that all 11 of us are ok. We were not harmed in
any way, but have some stories to tell. I don't tend
to like long e-mails, but I will tell our story in
full.
Keep in mind that the tsunamis hit Phuket at 9:30am on
the morning of the 26th (Thailand time).
On the 26th Crystal, one of our teammates, very
generously offered to babysit Soren so that we could
have a day together. We decided to take a
boating/snorkeling tour of the Phi Phi Islands off the
coast of Thailand...
8am: we left the hotel by car (the earthquake
happened, upbeknownst to us while we were driving)
9 am: We leave on a boat for a 45 min. ride to an
island called Bamboo Island
9:30am: The Tsunami hits Patong beach, on the opposite
side of the Island.
9:50am: We stopped at Bamboo Island and were told we
had 40 min to swim and snorkel.
10:20am: We had been in the water for 30 minutes when
we looked up and discovered we were the only ones in
the water and our tour guide was yelling for everyone
to get back aboard. Irritated that our time was being
cut short we and the other 20 tourists got
aboard the boat and motored away just in time to
see another boat become totally beached on the sand by
the water receading so quickly. We
can only pray that everyone aboard that boat made it
okay. The captain knew the tsunami had already had
hit Phuket Island and knew they couldn't return there.
In fact, the home office we had left from had been
totally destroyed. So, our boat started heading
towards Yao Noi Island, which was the closest safest
island, still a 45 minute boat ride.
10:45 On the way to Yao Noi we looked to our left to
see a 15' wall of water coming straight at us. Our
captain immediately sped up and somehow escaped the
wave.
11:15am: We finally made it to Yao Noi Island which
was shielded from the brunt of the waves and made it
to the dock before really knowing what had happened.
We hiked up a hill into this jungle area and waited.
We spent 4 emotionally draining hours waiting on that
island hearing mixed stories about what was going on
back at Patong. At one point, one police officer,
knowing very little english said, "Patong beach is
finished." We knew we were safe there but we had no
way of contacting the rest of the team to know if
everyone else, including soren were okay. One of the
tour guides happened to remember our hotels phone
number and we had met this nice australian family on
the boat with us that let us use their cell phone to
call our hotel and even my mom back in AR. Soren and
Crystal were safe in our hotel. Fortunately, our
hotel was about 3-4 blocks from the beach and was
totally unharmed. (In the begining we were
disappointed to not have a beach front hotel and in
the end we were very thankful we didn't!)
3:30pm: We had reason to believe that the waves had
past so we took the shortest route by boat back to
Phuket Island.
4pm: We arrived safely at a port on Phuket Island
where we waited for 2 hours. We were at a marina with
a TV and starting watching the news realizing what had
really happened.
6pm: We climb on a bus to take us back to Patong
beach... after driving for 45 min we discovered that
Patong had been totally evacuated and all the roads
going to that area had been shut down. (As it turns
out that was only partially true though). So, we were
eventually taken to a police station where we were
given dinner along with many other displaced people.
We were preparing to bed down in a near by school when
we got word that we could go back to Patong Beach.
9:30pm: We arrived back at Patong, were reunited with
Soren and the team, and were thankful to God that
everyone had come through the disaster safely.
The good news is that we are safe. The bad news, as
you know, is that (as of now) over 80,000 people in
this area of the world have entered eternity... most
of them into a Christless one. Please pray that God
would use this horrible tragedy to make people here
hungry to know the true God.
Grateful to be among the survivors,
Kevin, Stephanie and Soren
P.s. If you are interested, you can see all of our
photos at this link:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/icthus21/album?.dir=/59c8
There was a girl named Crystal who came to our Bible Studies at our house last year and became a friend. She is now a missionary in India who we support. Her mission team was at Phuket Island when the tsunami hit and are all alive with some pretty amazing stories. Jade knows quite a few of the people on the mission team. Crystal was her room mate at UCO. Here is an e-mail Jade got from the team with some pictures they took.
Kyle
--------------------------
Dear friends,
You may or may not have known that we spent Christmas
on the Island of Phuket, Thailand on Patong beach.
Yes, that is the island (and beach) you have been
hearing about on the news. I am writing to let you
know that all 11 of us are ok. We were not harmed in
any way, but have some stories to tell. I don't tend
to like long e-mails, but I will tell our story in
full.
Keep in mind that the tsunamis hit Phuket at 9:30am on
the morning of the 26th (Thailand time).
On the 26th Crystal, one of our teammates, very
generously offered to babysit Soren so that we could
have a day together. We decided to take a
boating/snorkeling tour of the Phi Phi Islands off the
coast of Thailand...
8am: we left the hotel by car (the earthquake
happened, upbeknownst to us while we were driving)
9 am: We leave on a boat for a 45 min. ride to an
island called Bamboo Island
9:30am: The Tsunami hits Patong beach, on the opposite
side of the Island.
9:50am: We stopped at Bamboo Island and were told we
had 40 min to swim and snorkel.
10:20am: We had been in the water for 30 minutes when
we looked up and discovered we were the only ones in
the water and our tour guide was yelling for everyone
to get back aboard. Irritated that our time was being
cut short we and the other 20 tourists got
aboard the boat and motored away just in time to
see another boat become totally beached on the sand by
the water receading so quickly. We
can only pray that everyone aboard that boat made it
okay. The captain knew the tsunami had already had
hit Phuket Island and knew they couldn't return there.
In fact, the home office we had left from had been
totally destroyed. So, our boat started heading
towards Yao Noi Island, which was the closest safest
island, still a 45 minute boat ride.
10:45 On the way to Yao Noi we looked to our left to
see a 15' wall of water coming straight at us. Our
captain immediately sped up and somehow escaped the
wave.
11:15am: We finally made it to Yao Noi Island which
was shielded from the brunt of the waves and made it
to the dock before really knowing what had happened.
We hiked up a hill into this jungle area and waited.
We spent 4 emotionally draining hours waiting on that
island hearing mixed stories about what was going on
back at Patong. At one point, one police officer,
knowing very little english said, "Patong beach is
finished." We knew we were safe there but we had no
way of contacting the rest of the team to know if
everyone else, including soren were okay. One of the
tour guides happened to remember our hotels phone
number and we had met this nice australian family on
the boat with us that let us use their cell phone to
call our hotel and even my mom back in AR. Soren and
Crystal were safe in our hotel. Fortunately, our
hotel was about 3-4 blocks from the beach and was
totally unharmed. (In the begining we were
disappointed to not have a beach front hotel and in
the end we were very thankful we didn't!)
3:30pm: We had reason to believe that the waves had
past so we took the shortest route by boat back to
Phuket Island.
4pm: We arrived safely at a port on Phuket Island
where we waited for 2 hours. We were at a marina with
a TV and starting watching the news realizing what had
really happened.
6pm: We climb on a bus to take us back to Patong
beach... after driving for 45 min we discovered that
Patong had been totally evacuated and all the roads
going to that area had been shut down. (As it turns
out that was only partially true though). So, we were
eventually taken to a police station where we were
given dinner along with many other displaced people.
We were preparing to bed down in a near by school when
we got word that we could go back to Patong Beach.
9:30pm: We arrived back at Patong, were reunited with
Soren and the team, and were thankful to God that
everyone had come through the disaster safely.
The good news is that we are safe. The bad news, as
you know, is that (as of now) over 80,000 people in
this area of the world have entered eternity... most
of them into a Christless one. Please pray that God
would use this horrible tragedy to make people here
hungry to know the true God.
Grateful to be among the survivors,
Kevin, Stephanie and Soren
P.s. If you are interested, you can see all of our
photos at this link:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/icthus21/album?.dir=/59c8
posted by Jake at 9:38 AM
1 Comments:
All of a sudden the "problems" I have been dealing with for the past twenty-four hours seem pointless...funny thing is that 24 hours ago I knew they were pointless, I knew that God could take care of me and everything, but I choose to go crazy anyway....
(sigh) I hate not really trusting
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