Religious groups reach out to victims

Andrew Edwards

Members of the religious community have begun dispatching money to

areas hit by last week’s devastating tsunami, and in some cases they

simply sent themselves.

A team from Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa has already arrived in the

area, Pastor Gaylord Tohill said Monday. Members of the team are

connected to Safe Harbor International Relief, based out of Rancho

Santa Margarita, and are trying to visit all areas affected by the

disaster, which according to United Nations estimates killed about

150,000 people -- nearly the population of Newport-Mesa.

“We’re trying to hit them all,” Tohill said.

The tsunami, triggered Dec. 28 by a major earthquake, caused

destruction along Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Indonesian island of

Sumatra, among other regions.

An online journal written by Gary Kusonoki, leader of the Safe

Harbor team, details the group’s efforts. Kusonoki wrote that the

team arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Saturday and that his team’s

mission would be to provide whatever immediate aid could be given and

figure out what projects will need to be undertaken in the future.

A group from Costa Mesa’s Rock Harbor Church, which had planned a

trip to India before the tsunami struck, arrived near the city of

Hyderabad the day after the disaster. Rock Harbor church members

raised more than $50,000 in donations on Sunday, church spokeswoman

Jen Mulroney said. The money will be sent to those church members

already in India, so they can make care packages.

Many Rock Harbor members contacted the church in the week between

the tsunami and Sunday services, asking how they could help.

“We had a lot of phone calls in the last week, a lot of e-mails

[asking] ‘What can we do?’ ‘What is Rock Harbor doing?’” Mulroney

said.

In India, Rock Harbor’s team works with Harvest India, a Christian

group in that country.

The Newport-Mesa Christian Center in Costa Mesa also has a

connection to Harvest India, and that church plans to send a team to

India around the end of the month, associate pastor Jeff Keith said.

“This is such a cataclysmic event, we want to be in the middle of

it as much as we can,” Keith said.

Many local religious groups collected special donations for

tsunami victims, and fundraising is ongoing:

* The Islamic Educational Center of Orange County in Costa Mesa

collected about $5,000 for relief efforts, board member Saide Khan

said.

* Members of Newport Center United Methodist Church gave about

$2,000, Pastor Cathleen Coots said.

* The Orange County Chapter of the American Jewish Committee is

currently asking for funds from across the county, executive director

Rabbi Marc Dworkin said. Nationally, the committee has already given

$100,000.

* Harbor Christian Church in Newport Beach collected about $2,200

Sunday, Pastor Dennis Short said.

Short is also president of the Newport-Mesa-Irvine Interfaith

Council, a local ecumenical organization. Though the group has not

yet formed a plan to coordinate relief efforts, he said future action

is possible.

“It doesn’t mean we won’t,” he said. “This is an ongoing thing.”

At least one more Newport Beach native was close at hand for the

tsunami but escaped untouched. Clark Beek, son of Balboa Island Ferry

operator Seymour Beek, was sailing with his girlfriend about 10 miles

off the coast of Thailand near the Malaysian border when the tsunami

struck, but it passed under his boat, and he didn’t notice a thing.

An island where Clark Beek had anchored his 40-foot boat the

previous night was destroyed, but he didn’t know it had happened

until a friend called from Thailand to check on him, Seymour Beek

said. The Thailand trip was part of a six-year journey that will

ultimately take Clark Beek around the world.

“It turns out that most of the places that he visited [near

Thailand], most of them are just totally wiped out,” Seymour Beek

sad.

The younger Beek called home right away to assure loved ones he

was fine, and they hadn’t yet learned of the tsunami’s devastation.

“We got the good news before we got the bad news,” Seymour Beek

said. “He knew it would be on the news the next day, and he didn’t

want us to be alarmed.”

* ANDREW EDWARDS is the news assistant. He can be reached at (714)

966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew .edwards@latimes.com. Alicia Robinson

contributed to this report.