austraLasia 1085
Thai Tsunami relief leaves vivid memories - lest we forget.
PHUKET: 17th March 2005 -- Hard to believe but true. Just yesterday, Salesian regional superior Fr Vaclav Klement visited part of the 300 km coastline near Phuket to realise that at Yanyao and Ban Muang 800 corpses lie unidentified in refrigerators and 4,000 are still listed officially as 'missing'.
With the help of Fr Patrick Maccioni SDB (Rector, diocesan minor seminary Surat Thani) and Fr John Suthep SDB who conducts the emergency Thai Boy Scouts Camp in the region - and of course with the overall assistance of Bishop Joseph Prathan, Fr Klement was able to gauge the situation for himself.
The 'scout' story is a modern version of Don Bosco's encouragement to the Oratory boys to get in and help Turin's cholera victims. A local fisherman and business man who lost all 7 of his boats to the Tsunami, but whose house was miraculously saved, has offered 3 hectares to the scouts on an indefinite basis. At the Tsunami scout camp, hundreds of Thai Catholic scouts spend a number of days, visiting villages (100% temporary housing). During the day, the scouts spend their day with the families, listening, helping. At night in their tents they share, amongst themselves, their common experience of compassionate help .
Other Catholic volunteers from university groups (holidays have begun in Thailand) are also helping out. The striking factor, for locals, is that the Thai Catholic community, young and old, has never left them!
Surat Thani Don Bosco Tech students met with Fr Klement and shared their own experiences of working for up to two weeks at a time in nearby villages, a neat experience of service of this kind for the first time in their young lives.
Two FMA Sisters with 15 of their students and past pupils of four different FMA schools have been doing something similar, in particular helping with reconstruction, some helping non-Thai (often illegal Burmese, or tribal people) in nearby villages.
Fr Klement visited one of the completely destroyed villages along the coast where the Catholic community has been hard at work. There he found 50 tonne fishing boats dropped 500 metres from the coast, on houses. He visited the three camps where 28 Religious Congregations are at work as part of the joint task force mounted by the Thai Episcopal Conference.
Amongst the most striking of images for the Visitor were: the work being done on fishing boats and the aim to have them at sea by end of March; the appreciation for the unique NGO, if you can call it that, of Catholic Religious who have stayed with the people all this time. The SIHM Sisters led by Bishop Prathan's niece have entered villages as yet without government help - and in special need of doctors and dentists (if any are reading this!).
It is a matter of money, now. The resorts are mainly back up and running. The Salesian project, a modest orphanage, is moving to a point of planning agreement but in need of land - which has rapidly escalated in price!
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