Surviving

I know many of you are expecting an update on us and that many people want to know what’s happening in our lives. We appreciate all the emails and messages and apologise that poor phone reception in the area in which we are camping has meant we haven’t been able to reply to you all.

Unfortunately this post is not about me, or us…there are more important issues to discuss, so no update other than to say yes, we’re officially homeless and moving from campsite to campsite around south east Queensland – but we are ok.

I am writing this on December 26^th – hopefully I will get to post it to the blog today but it’s unlikely that I will, so you all need to just pretend that it is still the 26^th  Don’t worry, you can ignore the nagging hangover you were experiencing from Christmas day!

Can anyone tell me what today is? Yes, it’s Boxing Day, correct, but it’s also the 5^th anniversary of the Boxing Day Tsunami which totally decimated parts of several countries across the Indian Ocean – the worst hit being the Aceh Provence of Sumatra, Indonesia. The event that is thought to have eventually claimed over 300,000 lives (over 200,000 of those in Indonesia) attracted far less media attention than it deserved. Why? Because it didn’t occur in a first world country. It was Indonesia, a developing, over-populated country marred by poverty, terrorism and religious conflict.

People in many first world nations, may have watched the news and felt a moment of sorrow – but most people could not relate to the victims, they lacked the compassion to feel deeply moved  – that’s just what happens in countries like Indonesia, after all.  And whilst 7 billion US dollars in humanitarian aid poured in from around the world, these people were soon forgotten.

These innocent victims included mothers, not unlike myself, whose babies were torn from their arms by a torrent of water, to the sound of desperate screams for help and cries for mercy, whose bodies have never been found. Look at your youngest child – how long could you hold onto them in raging waters? What if you had several, how many could you hold? How do you decide who to let go of in order to save the others…and if you can make the decision and you survive, but one of your children dies – would you even want to carry on? Is that really surviving?

The innocent victims also included children who have witnessed and survived violent confrontations between extremist religious groups, only to see both their parents buried alive as the waters over took their homes and then subsided leaving behind a thick blanket of suffocating mud.

These may sound like scenes from a Hollywood movie, but they are real accounts of how hundreds of thousands of people died, lost their homes, lost their livelihoods, lost their families.

Five years later, the nightmare continues. Thousands of Indonesian children are still orphaned, they are still homeless, they are still hungry and they are still waiting for someone to help.

Project 18 needs to raise 1 million dollars before the end of 2010 to be able to assist these children and shine some light into the darkness. No child should ever have to give up the hope of a better life, no child should ever believe that no one cares enough to make sure they have a home and are raised with love and compassion.

I have a list of events and fundraising events planned that would make your head spin, but I can’t do it all myself. I need an army, we need volunteers who care enough to make a difference. Whether its an hour or a day or a week or full time indefinitely – we have the ability to save these children  - but I do need your help.

I may be homeless, I may not know where I will be sleeping in a week from today, I may have limited access to internet and phone and my camp might be continually flooding – but there are people who are far worse off than me. I survive this adversity because I have a purpose, and I will continue to pursue this purpose with 120% of my time & energy whether homeless or not.

If you can help Project 18 in any way, either through sponsorship, volunteering or anything else – please use the contact form on this site or visit www.project18.org.au to learn more.

Peace & love to you all – hug your kids and tell them you love them

Cate xx