Tsunamis, Flash Floods, and the Ghost of Christmas Past

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Originally uploaded by jamieimus.

Christmas day was great. Joy, Silas, and I made the drive from San Diego to San Bernadino in just under two hours (you've got to love Christmas morning traffic). We arrived and my mom had her amazing coffee cake ready and out of the oven minutes after we arrived. Nothing out of the usual really. A very textbook Christmas morning.

After we finished all the family morning activity (with a 2 1/2 year old it consists of ripping and tearing wrapping paper) we relaxed and watched tv, played around with new toys, ate more coffee cake, or just sat and relaxed.

I decided to go online and check my email. On the way I noticed a tiny one line newslink about a massive earthquake in the Indian Ocean. I then found out that in only a few hours thousands had died as the result of this earthquake. As of right now TENS of THOUSANDS have died.

I was a more than a little disturbed to find that the "news" had only a handful of stories (we don't want to upset happy Christmas days do we?) were being run on this disaster that had almost claimed as many lives as 9/11 (and now has well surpassed that number).

I did a google search on "Helping Tsunami Victims" and here are a few links I found:

Islamic Relief Worldwide (first link that wasn't a news story in Google).

ReliefWeb.int

World Vision (you can make donations directly through this link).

Maybe we shouldn't be too happy on a day when millions of people are being forced to flee their homes.