March 16, 2005

NEW YORK CITY – The media blitz is over, but the pain of thousands of tsunami survivors goes on. Shanta Premawardhana, the National Council of Churches USA's Director of Interfaith Relations, has prepared two resources to help U.S. churches that want to continue to be engaged with Asians in rebuilding their communities.

A Good Friday-Easter Bulletin Insert is available on the NCC Web site – http://www.ncccusa.org/– in Adobe Acrobat PDF format and is suitable for reprinting. This reflection guide on the three-month anniversary of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami is designed for use Good Friday to Easter Sunday 2005.

The Bulletin Insert complements the more thorough guidelines for churches – entitled "Listening to, Learning from and Living into Asia's Pain" – that were prepared in consultation with ecumenical leaders in Sri Lanka and Indonesia and informed by Premawardhana's own experiences as a native of Sri Lanka.

The needs remain especially severe in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province and Indonesia's Aceh Province, where recovery will take years.

The Rev. Premawardhana says that "building relationships through religious institutions seems to be one of the best ways" to maintain a continuing commitment to the rebuilding effort. There are practical ways for churches to get involved, advocacy concerns, cautions about the use of money, background on Asian Christianity, and even several denomination-specific ideas.

Following are the specific Web addresses for these two resources:

Bulletin Insert: http://www.ncccusa.org/interfaith/AsiaPainBulletinInsert.html.

Guidelines for Churches: http://www.ncccusa.org/interfaith/churchguidelines-tsunami.html.

National Council of Churches