In ravaged Indonesia, help is an act of faith

MEDAN, Indonesia -- The trail of aid from the Church of the Tabernacle of David begins at an unmarked storefront in an inconspicuous alley a few miles from the sanctuary.

Boxes from the Samaritan's Purse, the relief organization run by evangelist Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham, are stacked to the ceiling. Pickup trucks laden with rice, biscuits, and mattresses arrive and are unloaded. A church representative buys the goods from wholesale sellers with contributions from Indonesia and abroad.

Truckloads of the supplies leave the storefront in the evenings, arriving in the devastated city of Banda Aceh, 260 miles northwest, in time for the goods to be unloaded, then repackaged at a sprawling hotel serving as headquarters for church volunteers and countless others from Indonesia and abroad assisting them. Members of a Bali surfers' group separate the goods into black plastic bags -- one package of biscuits, one of dry noodles, one of milk. The aid is then delivered to tsunami survivors in the ravaged northernmost tip of Sumatra island.

Volunteers from the Medan church, led by Pastor Sukendra Saragih, are among the thousands of humanitarian workers who have poured into Aceh Province, the epicenter of the disaster that struck two weeks ago, spurring one of the largest international aid efforts in history.

Saragih's outfit, although dwarfed by international aid groups, is the face of a new, grass-roots relief movement that is attracting unprecedented numbers to Aceh, a region that had been all but closed to outsiders, strangers because of Indonesia's 28-year conflict with separatists.

The church group's effort is not only challenging and grueling, it is also dangerous: Christians, a minority of about 8 percent in the world's most populous Muslim country, have often been targets of attack in Aceh, according to church leaders. But the pastor -- stone-faced and exhausted after many sleepless nights and strenuous days -- remains undaunted, carrying on with the faith that from the ashes of disaster, a better future for Aceh will rise.

''I believe Aceh will change," he said. ''Aceh will change because people will see we Christians and foreigners care for them and have condolences."

Christian churches in Indonesia have launched what they call the largest Indonesian Christian response to a disaster. A group that Saragih's church is assisting, Bless Indonesia Today, is spearheading a ministry appeal to raise $50,000 for administrative expenses alone, so that all other donations from the general appeal will go directly to assisting victims, according to IndonesiaWatch.org., a religious website.

In partnership with foreign missionaries, Indonesian churches are building on the work of Christians in the United States, where members of the National Council of Churches dispatched $1 million in immediate tsunami aid and set a goal of raising $5 million.

Despite the outpouring of what Indonesian Christians call ''tsunami love," they go out of their way to say they are not interested in converting Muslims and that they recognize the danger of their work.

''This place was hard to come to before for foreigners, for Christians. It's very sensitive," Dean L. Rompis, a 28-year-old member of a Church of the Tabernacle of David branch in Jakarta, said as he worked out logistics of aid convoys in flip-flops and a large blue sun hat at the Banda Aceh hotel. ''They might think we're here to preach gospel in a Muslim area." Rompis asserted that pastors had been killed in Aceh in the past by the Free Aceh Movement, even as the Indonesian military is accused of killing thousands of civilians in Aceh. Still, he is hopeful that the era of bloodshed is over.

''Right now, all the Christians are more concerned about humanity," he said. ''We are all the same nation. We want to help them, not because of religion or tribe. The tsunami makes everybody want to do things for Aceh."

A call to duty
For some, a disaster as massive as this can shake their faith and cause onlookers to question why God would allow it. But for Saragih, as for many of his Muslim counterparts, the suffering is simply a mandate to mobilize and assist.

When the earthquake and resulting tsunami hit Dec. 26, Saragih dropped all other plans and drove the next day with another pastor to Aceh, where he had spent nine years quietly working among a tiny community of Christians and building up contacts. When he arrived, the city was unrecognizable, with hundreds of bodies scattered in a field across from the Kartika Hotel, which is run by a friend of Saragih.

He asked if the Kartika could be used for the humanitarian effort, and his friend, a civilian who has run the military-owned hotel for decades, agreed.

But as word spread of Saragih's work and of the scale of the disaster, the endeavor took on a life of its own.

Christian doctors from the Oregon-based Northwest Medical Team International came to stay a few nights in the front bedrooms. Christian surfers known as ''Conquerors of the Wave" arrived from Bali, sleeping five to a row on the floor in a back room.

A Christian political group arrived from Jakarta and camped out in a meeting room. Korean Christians arrived, along with many others, crowding the hotel's corridors with their bedrolls and pitching tents on the front porch.

About nine days in, the operation became unwieldy. The cooks wondered how many people to make food for every day and who all these new faces were. Saragih said he wondered how he would pay the electric bill. He grew exhausted, but could not take a rest.

To make matters worse, he received a phone call from the military asking whether it was true that he was charging people for staying there and taking advantage of this disaster? No, he assured the caller; everyone stays for free, and eats for free, paying only a donation.

Still, the hotel has taken on the look of a refugee camp, with vats of rice cooked outside on smoky fires, unexpected guests begging for access to a bathroom from those lucky enough to have self-contained rooms, and the shelves behind the bar stacked high with clothes, shoes, and toiletries.

''There are too many volunteers," said one anxious hotel guest, a refugee from Banda Aceh who came to stay here after his home was destroyed. But even he has opened his little room to newcomers, laying four mattresses across the floor and housing at least five humanitarian squatters.

Just as the big-ticket aid agencies faced massive logistical difficulties until they agreed to meet regularly in Banda Aceh to coordinate their work, the groups at the Kartika finally held a meeting to decide how to divide up tasks and set rules.

With his blue hat shielding him from the sun, Rompis slowly began to organize the chaos.

''If I get a printer, I will ask everyone to fill out this form," he said as he canvassed groups about how long they intended to stay and what kind of goods they had brought to donate to the aid effort.

'I still think God is good'
As evening fell, the weary Saragih propped himself up in the open doorway of the hotel lobby after a hectic day.

The delivery truck laden with rice and biscuits had made the 16-hour trek from Medan and deposited its daily load in the front yard. Volunteers had sorted the goods into family-sized packages. The drivers had loaded thousands of the packages into ragtag vehicles and left for coastal villages full of refugees.

That afternoon, he had watched volunteers load the packages onto a truck that finally pulled out of the Kartika parking lot and wound its way northeast down the coastal highway toward an area called Ladong, accompanied by a Globe reporter.

Alongside the road, children sat at tables lined with donation boxes. Sometimes the truck stopped, and villagers ran after it, reaching for the packets handed out through the back door.

After about an hour's journey past ruined houses and flattened factories, the truck climbed a hill up to a refugee camp, where Idawati, a 25 year-old housewife, had taken refuge in a school with 90 other families.

Idawati, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, smiled shyly when the food and supplies were unloaded from the truck, one of about four aid deliveries that stop in Ladong every day. She did not know whether Christians or Muslims donated the food -- nor did she care.

''We just take everything. We don't care where it is from," said Idawati, who fled with her young son up the nearest hill the moment she saw ''the water stand up like a tree," ready to wash away her fishing village.

At another stop farther down the road, a wizened district officer named Yusman Ahmad smoked and fiddled with his false teeth under a tarp as he presided over mountains of rice, used clothes, and medical supplies. Ahmad estimated the huge bags of rice would only last two days, as they had to feed 2,800 people.

When asked whether every religion was free to donate to the camp, Ahmad nodded his head.

''In Islam, it is permissible to accept aid from anyone," he said, adding, ''It's no problem for outsiders to come here, as long as they respect our customs."

Relieved of its load, the truck headed back to the Kartika Hotel.

Back at the headquarters, the delivery was reported as a success. But the volunteers returned to discover the stunning news that about 50 bodies had been found outside a church, struck down by nature on the day after Christmas with a force that has been described as biblical.

First, the earthquake struck, prompting parishioners to run outside as their church crumbled. Then, the giant wave came, killing what appeared to be the entire Sunday school.

''I still think God is a good God," Rompis said. ''I think he did this to show us that he is still almighty, that there is something bigger than the power of man."

A short distance away, in the lobby, Saragih looked a shade more ashen. As he talked about plans to be in Aceh, on and off, for the next two years, he acknowledged: ''Physically, I am very tired. Emotionally, I have a broken heart for Aceh. And that's why I have persevered."