A TREK team member processes her experience

Katrina Grabner, a Thailand TREK team member from Alberta, spent some time processing her thoughts on their work in the disaster region of southern Thailand. While this excerpt does not give a complete picture of all she and her team have seen, it gives us insight into the spiritual, physical, mental and emotional aspects of such an ordeal.

—Edited by Joanne Felts

Six TREKers are working in Chonburi, Thailand with Team 2000. (Back, l–r) Jason Reimer (Gateway Christian Fellowship, St. Catharines), Dallas Stobbe (Lakeview Community Church, Killarney, Man.), (front) Amanda Griffioen (Central Heights MB Church, Abbotsford), Corina Reimer (married to Jason, Gateway Christian Fellowship, St. Catharines), Katrina Grabner (Rocky Mountain House, Alta.), Danielle Slaughter (Fresno, Cal.). Photo: MBMSI

It was an honour to serve with the many volunteers in southern Thailand and to serve the Thai people, whom we love so much. We really are a part of a global community and in times of disaster and tragedy, everyone realizes this more clearly. We are all human beings who live and die, feel pain, and feel great love. Our hearts all beat the same, no matter what we look like or where we come from. When our brothers and sisters in the world are hurting, we hurt also.

We were in the Phangnga area, the hardest hit area in Thailand, for three full days. There are around 3,800 dead and over 2,400 missing there. The destruction caused by the tsunami is unbelievable. During our first day, we went to one of the villages that was hit. It had been completely destroyed. There were large boats in the middle of the village and it looked like a garbage dump had exploded. It was so hard to believe that people like you and me made their lives there.

TREKer Jason Reimer in the midst of rubble caused by the tsunami, near Phuket. Photo: MBMSI

We spent time looking through lists of the missing people, trying to match them to the hospital lists. We also helped fold and organize a mountain of clothes that had been donated from people all over the country. There was also a huge need for volunteers to help put the corpses into body bags and into coffins.

Foreigners are not usually allowed to do this gruesome task at the temples but the situation was so desperate they needed volunteers. We don’t blame the Thai people for asking us to do this, because there was really just organized chaos there. They have done their best in this unpredictable and painful situation, so we chose to serve them this way, as this was their biggest need while we were there. However, we could handle only an hour of this, because it takes so much out of a person, both physically and emotionally.

Our hour at the temple, moving the corpses into body bags and into coffins, was by far the most difficult task for our team. There was row upon row of decomposing bodies at the temples. The smell of death was everywhere and it was absolutely revolting and suffocating. There was no escaping the reality that we all, as human beings, will face physical death on this earth. It is the one thing that we can never control. Just as love and life are a part of our experience on earth, so is pain and death.

The Thailand TREK team at work trying to match lists of missing people with hospital lists. Photo: MBMSI

When we returned to our main base and saw the huge wall filled with pictures and posters of all the missing people, many of whom were foreigners, it was very painful to realize and understand that they were once people just like me who loved and received love from others. I felt Christ’s heart break within my own for the people He had created and loved. I knew He was grieving for them just as much as everyone else was, and that He was there in this situation, healing the broken-hearted and bringing hope where it seems there is none.

On our second night there, God gave me Psalm 46. It says, “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear, even if earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the ocean roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge . . . The Lord almighty is here among us: the God of Israel is our fortress” (NLT).

—Katrina Grabner