14th August, 2007

PHIL SMITH

The recent flooding in Bangladesh, and the enormous suffering that came with it, hardly rated a mention in Australian media. Watching SBS brought back memories almost three years old.

I went from a Brisbane lounge room to a makeshift office in Banda Aceh during the terrible weeks of early 2005.

“Oh s**t, that’s bigger than last week!”
“I’m getting outside.”
“Sir! I cannot swim.”
“It’s all right Bunda. There isn’t another big wave coming.”

Our middle aged translator fled. The army sergeant shook his head and gave me that look.

“Yeah, right sir. How long have you been a qualified seismologist?”

That exchange took place in the former morgue, amidst the wreckage of Banda Aceh’s largest hospital. I served there for almost six weeks on the Australian Task Force sent in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami. As officer in command of media operations, I dealt with the international press corps covering the Australian Defence Force relief effort.

When the next big set of earthquakes shook the buildings, my sergeant was right. I was only guessing there would be no tidal wave. I didn’t know for sure. I was only saying what I thought would comfort my terrified interpreter. Bunda had seen family members crushed, burnt and drowned only a few days before.

‘God is our refuge and strength, a tested help in times of trouble. Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble.’

My problem is not with the scripture. It’s with me. Psalm 46 may well be true. God may be a refuge and strength, but if we’ve never been in deep trouble, we’ve never tested that refuge.

So what happens when the ocean does foam and roar? What about when the mountains actually tremble?

It’s frightening and dangerous. You’d better hope your god is big and strong enough because you’re about to find out how weak and insignificant you are. You will discover how closely your faith is tied to comfort. You’re about to learn that theological qualifications don’t count.

Pick your way among the ruins of family homes, collapsed by earthquake and blackened by gas fires before they were swamped in mud carried by a God-only-knows-how-big wave.

Check out the 18 metre fishing boat sitting on the roof of a two-storey house. Do the rough sums. That vessel weighs around 35 tons.

There is an obvious question about our God here but, two weeks into the mission, I’m not brave enough to ask it yet. So I’ll leave it for now.

“The body trucks haven’t come around yet, sir.”
“You’ve been at that site three days?”
“Yep. So we’ve given the bodies names. The blokes say, ‘Good morning’ to them when we arrive to start work. They call the little girl Jessica. She’s the one with just the face and one arm sticking out of the mud…”
The young combat engineer cannot know my own little girl’s name is Jessica. She is 13 and safe at home in Brisbane.

I realise I don’t know God as well as I thought I did. Make no mistake. I don’t (or perhaps I won’t) doubt His existence or even His love and grace.

The Hebrews had different names for Him: God who provides, God who shelters, God the Lord, God our rock. All I know is the God who cares for my family, God who healed me with a miracle when I was a 12-year-old asthmatic. I know the God of my wealthy suburban congregation.

What about God who melts mountains like wax? What about the Lord of the Universe who actually understands all about tidal waves and volcanoes? He formed the earth to perfection, and He will bring history to a conclusion.

I stand in the district we nick-named Hiroshima and the words of a worship song come to mind. “When oceans rise and tempests roar, I will soar with You above the storm.”

Maybe.

Then again, I might be drowned like tens of thousands of Achinese, swept away into eternity. Some of them would have been Christians a lot like me.

“Here come the mossies again. Pass the spray, boss.
“The breeze should get up again soon.”
“Yeah, and the smell.”
“I reckon there must still be one just under the mud near here.”
“Might be a dead dog?”

“Yeah, right!”

So the big question I’m not game to ask is, “Where is our creator God in this?”

I don’t know for sure. I can’t tell you.

Confronted with such enormous destructive power I was left with options. I could say, “There is no god”. That would lead me into the madness of a totally random and purposeless world.

I couldn’t say, “My all powerful God had nothing to do with this". No. I can’t have it both ways.

I could comfort myself with the sure fire wealthy western Christian response - “It can’t happen to me.” Rubbish! It can and it does. Choppers crash. Just a few weeks later a navy helo went down and we lost a medical team. At home, cars crash. People die of cancer and in conflict zones. Bad things happen to Christians and others. In Sumatra, it’s the scale that gets your attention.

I don’t know why this happened. Oh, I have a layman’s understanding of how tectonic plates shift but no real comprehension of how God’s creation has come to this. He knows. He knew.

Still, I choose to believe.

I believe in a God who is bigger even than the most horrible thing I have ever seen and smelt and dreamt about. How well do I know Him? Well enough to trust Him with my physical safety, my spiritual well being and my emotional health.

I hope I will never again misuse adjectives such as Almighty. I hope I will never sing lightly about the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

“Welcome to worship.”
There are fifteen or twenty women and men in two or three day old, smelly dirty cams. We are all sorts and all ranks and none has worked harder on this deployment than the padre. Don’s services are simple.
“In my denomination, this communion is open to all believers.”

‘Yeah, and thank God for that!’

Thank God because I don’t understand the cosmic big picture stuff. I can’t get a solid grip on the link between a fallen world and the suffering of some nations.

So I hold tight to the basics. As Augustine said, “I believe in order to understand.”

Where are those everlasting arms?

They are around us as we gather at the table. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is so powerful that he can forgive me and guarantee my future forever.

This once perfect creation is flawed and dying. This sinner is too. One day I will be swept away into eternity, and that will be the day I understand God’s power even beyond death.

I will know Him.

More importantly, He already knows me. He knows my weakness, my incomprehension and my fears. He loves me. The God who raised Jesus to life can lift me from the miry clay, or the black stinking silt where the bodies rot.

In his civilian career, Phil Smith is a writer and broadcaster. As a RAAF reservist, Squadron Leader Smith has served with the Australian Defence Forces around the world. He deployed to Banda Aceh as Officer-in-Command, Media Operations, during Operation Sumatra Assist. A husband, and father of teenage daughters, he worships at Pine Rivers Uniting Church.

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