The York Dispatch: When the 43-person team from Living Word Community Church in York, Penn., left the state of Tamil Nadu, on the southeast coast of India, they did so having helped alleviate some of the hopelessness they witnessed first hand -- by providing medical care, by donating more than $100,000 to a ravaged fishing village and by ministering to the villagers who survived the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami.
Living Word parishioners have been going to southeast India for 20 years to do missionary work and have always seen people living in poverty. Normally, their base of operations is Bethel Agricultural Fellowship, a small Christian community in the state of Tamil Nadu.
But in response to the tsunami, a portion of the team headed south, into the heart of the disaster, according to the Rev. Steve Almquist. The team set up medical clinics and Almquist said Living Word adopted one of the ravaged fishing villages, Thirumullaivasal, where between 89 and 110 people died during and after the tsunami.
