About Open Hands

As we watched the news programs broadcast footage of the horrific December 26^th tsunami in Southeast Asia, our hearts burst with desire to do something to help. Our family had spent 4 years living on the neighboring Island of Java (1993-1997) and had grown to love the people and culture of Indonesia. Within a few days, in coordination with our church, we began working on forming a non-profit disaster relief organization to help channel money and help directly to this desperate situation. In a few short weeks we had also formed a disaster relief medical team, had all the necessary paper work, passports, etc, and were ready to play a small part in the massive recovery needs in Indonesia.  

It was indeed a blessing and an honor to be part of this medical relief team, operating under the new name of “Open Hands.”  Our team of 10 from Central Ohio included 2 physicians, 2 registered nurses, 4 EMT paramedics and Mark and myself as translators/ team leaders. Our team was a wonderful group of compassionate and flexible people thrown together at a moment’s notice (many of us met at the airport for the first time!) and yet God enabled us to gel quickly and work together as a team as if we had been friends for many years. 

We had seen the scenes of destruction on TV news programs, but were still unprepared for the devastation we witnessed as we journeyed to the hardest hit region of Aceh province on the island of Sumatra. We did not meet a single person who had not lost a family member – most had lost the majority of their families, friends and neighbors and were still reeling from the emotional trauma of this disaster. On top of this, they were under-fed, many were ill and had lost homes and all their belongings.  

We set up our base camp & medical clinic next to a refugee camp on the outskirts of the capital city of Banda Aceh. The first few mornings we spent assessing the situation in and around the city, making it back to camp to open the clinic in the afternoons. In some areas the waves were so high that they had covered 4 story buildings. Ships were pulled inland from sea and came to rest in the middle of neighborhoods several miles from the beach. The smell of death was with us each day as we passed areas where hard-to-reach bodies still lay unburied in the twisted debris. We set up several mobile medical clinics and treated the sick at several IDP camps (Indigenous Displaced People) and worked alongside UNICEF to immunize school children ages 5-12. Towards the end of the trip our team received UN approval to participate in helicopter flights out to remote areas still in need of basic aid. This was an incredibly emotional and rewarding trip. As you can imagine it was very hard for all of us to leave these precious people still in so much need. The rebuilding will take years.

On March 28, 2005 another violent earthquake ripped through Sumatra. Focused near the Island of Nias, a small coastal island, this event killed over 1,300 people and heavily damaged the developed areas on the island. Open Hands sent a team of ten volunteers to the island in June 2005. These volunteers partnered with World Food Programme to deliver and distribute food and medicines, volunteered at local hospitals, constructed particulated type water filtration systems, counseled traumatized survivors and provide direct patient care at several mobile medical clinics. Open Hands also provided a local non profit with essential equipment for the construction of water filtrations systems.  A small contingency of the team also visited several orphanages in and around the Jakarta area. Secondary to these visits Open Hands immediately organized a shoe and school supply drive in the Columbus, Ohio area. This drive delivered shoes and school supplies to over 200 orphans in Indonesia. 

During the early morning hours of July 17, 2006 another earthquake struck Indonesia. Located near Yogyakarta, Central Java this event killed 800 and displaced 54,256 people. Open Hands again responded with a medical team of seven American healthcare providers to the region with valuable medical supplies. Our team then partnered with two Indonesian physicians and three Indonesian translators to treat 790 patients in the Yogya area. During the mission to Java the team also visited one asylum delivering food, clothing, sleeping mats, providing medical care and offering prayer.