Rebuilding Lives
One Village at a Time

Two years after the Asian Tsunami, the AIMS Tsunami Fund is still changing lives across Southeast Asia

AIMS News: Posted 12/1/2006

THAILAND: Sixty Muslim families live in poverty on a small rock island just off the coast of southern Thailand. With no tillable land and only a few coconut trees, fishing was their only livelihood. The families established small villages along the coast to gather just enough fish to trade with villages on the mainland for rice. An hour boat ride from the shore, the villagers had no access to a church or even a Christian. They didnít even have an imam (a Islamic leader) to lead them.

On December 24, 2004, waves from the Asian Tsunami wiped out the fishing villages and damaged most of their equipment. All sixty families escaped to the center part of the island, but their source of livelihood was destroyed. "Pacaon," a missionary in Thailand and an AIMS partner, learned about the village and began ministering to them. He asked AIMS for help.

Immediately after the tsunami, AIMS launched the Tsunami Relief and Development Fund. AIMS donors and partners donated more than $60,000 to help overseas partners in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. AIMS gave Pacaon $5,000 to replace fishing nets, repair motors and boats, and supply water purifiers for the village.

Pacaon began to build relationships with the families on the island. Through gifts from other agencies, he was also able to build a school on the island and rebuild a home on the mainland. The families were grateful. Since they didnít have a spiritual leader, they began to look to Pacaon for guidance.

"By just providing nets, we opened the door for a missionary to share the Gospel with an unreached people group," said "Gideon," AIMS Asia Director. "It proves that it doesnít take much to really affect people."

Pacaon plans to hold a meeting with the sixty families on the island this Christmas to share the Gospel openly with them.

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