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The group has set a worldwide goal of raising $20 million, and Owen said he expected "that we'll exceed that amount."

"Besides the immediate needs in many places, the roads are gone, hospitals are gone, the infrastructure has to be rebuilt. It's going to take years and billions of dollars."

Among the hardest hit is the Chennai area in southern India, where Compassion supports five communities whose combined population is about 289,000 inhabitants, and where it sponsors more than 900 children, said Compassion spokeswoman Stephanie Lee.

As of December 29, the group received a report of one village in north Chennai where the organization supports 25 children. All their homes had been "wiped away," she said. Also in that region, "more than 25 fathers of Compassion-assisted children were lost at sea when the waves struck," according to a news release.

"Because these people live along the coast, their livelihood is fishing," Lee said, "they lost their livelihood.

"Their boats are damaged and they don't have home insurance like we do. Some of the children only have the clothes on their back."

World Relief's Charles Moon pointed out another challenge: "the increasing prominence of Indonesia as the hardest hit nation (death toll 27,000 compared with the next highest of Sri Lanka with 17,000 as of [Dec. 29] morning) and the one that will need by far the most relief and rehab assistance.

"Clearly, the devastation in Indonesia and particularly in Banda Aceh on Sumatra is on a much higher scale than the other hard hit nations. It behooves us to be operational there and not just in those countries were it is the easiest to be active and where there is a multiplicity of other Christian NGOs."

"We're asking people to pray for families of the victims because the trauma they're suffered likely will be lifelong, and God's extraordinary and immeasurable mercy will be needed to soothe the wounds that people have suffered," Owen said.

"We're seeing snapshots of God's extraordinary mercy already, for example those extended by World Vision staff in Asia, some of whom have taken sometimes between 50 and 100 people who lost their families or and homes."

On Dec. 29, none of Compassion's 68 staff members in India was unaccounted for, and some of them were going home to home to check on the families they support.

Also on Wednesday morning, World Relief disaster response director Mark Smith and India country representative Rabindran Shelley began their assessment in Tamil Nadu, India's southeastern coastal region, according to marketing and communications manager Chris Pettit.

Like many evangelical organizations, World Relief was partnering with other groups in the region. It was planning to collaborate with Habitat for Humanity in India to rebuild homes. In Sri Lanka, World Relief was working alongside the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL).

Along with many other relief groups, Compassion has set up a disaster relief fund (see websites and news stories below).

Agnieszka Tennant is associate editor for Christianity Today.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

For additional breaking news coverage see these online articles:

Christian council of Sri Lanka responds

More than 11,00 dead in India

Bush reactions to 'stingy' comment

Minister's wife confirmed dead

Velankanni Pilgrims among the victims

Christian organizations reach out

Student thankful family survived

Saved by a Palm Tree

Here are links to a few of the many Protestant and evangelical groups helping victims of the tsunami in South Asia, and in most cases, setting up a designated account for this disaster:

Assemblies of God Relief

Baptist World Aid

Church World Service

Compassion International

Lutheran World Relief

Salvation Army

Samaritan's Purse

United Methodist

World Relief

World Vision

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December (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48