wfn.org | UMNS# 620-'God . had his hand on us' in disaster,

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

'God ... had his hand on us' in disaster, pastor's daughter says 

Dec. 31, 2004	 

By Jan Snider

The phone rang at 4:30 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 26, and when the Rev. Andy Pearson picked up the receiver, he heard his daughter's voice on the other end of the line.

"Dad, we're OK."

Susan Sweat and her husband, Maj. Scott Sweat, were vacationing on the Thai island of Phi Phi when a tsunami hit that day. 

Back in Macon, Miss., Pearson didn't know that a powerful undersea earthquake in Southeast Asia had sparked tidal waves that devastated parts of countries along the coastline of the Indian Ocean. The news was beginning to break in the United States.

"We had two blessings," said the pastor of Macon's First Methodist Church. "The first was that they were safe; the second was she was able to call us and let us know."

The Sweats have been married two years and live in Washington. She is a legislative assistant for a Mississippi congressman, and he is in the Air National Guard. The couple chose to travel to Phi Phi for an exotic holiday vacation. The trip turned out to be something much different.

In an e-mail to family and friends, Susan explained that the tsunami hit the day after they arrived. "Many people have died, and there were two medivac airlifts from our resort.  However, our resort was (thank God) the safest on the island as we faced the opposite direction of the wave and had high ground to retreat to. The two places we were to stay the next two nights have been totally destroyed. God definitely had His hand on us and we are grateful to be safe."

Pearson said that after he heard from his daughter, he rewrote his sermon. He titled it, "Life changes in an instant." He preached on the spiritual changes that occurred the night Jesus was born but wove the experiences of his daughter and son-in-law into the message.  

The next day, the Sweats were evacuated to the top of the island along with the rest of the resort guests. "All the guests and the locals were up there together, spread out all over the ground in hotel sheets," Susan wrote. "We were woken up at 2 a.m. by a helicopter landing on the tennis courts to evacuate more injured.  

"The locals are very nervous, and some of them walk around in lifejackets all the time.  This has never happened here before, so they are understandably upset," she added.

In the last e-mail that Pearson received, Susan said many of the locals had evacuated in fishing boats, and that she and Scott were awaiting a flight to Bangkok in order to catch their scheduled flight back to the United States. "The manager here has been excellent," she said. "He's South African and has rallied the guests with bullhorns (every) so often for updates."

Pearson is waiting to hear whether or not the couple will arrive in Washington on Jan. 1 as scheduled. He doesn't know when he'll be able to put his arms around his daughter, but he said his wife, Sally, is ready to fly to the nation's capital. "If you talk to my wife, we're flying out in 5 minutes!" he said.  

In the meantime, the Pearsons take comfort from their daughter's words. 

"All the guests here feel lucky to be alive and uninjured," Susan wrote. "God was obviously looking out for this little resort."

*Snider is a freelance producer for United Methodist News Service in Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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United Methodist News Service
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