Compassion Frisco

Aid for Aceh
by Mike Raye
Frisco Enterprise
December 2, 2005

Bill and Dellanna O’Brien’s Christmas was brought to a screeching halt last year, their spirits rapidly transported halfway across the globe to a land and a people they held dear.

The warm coziness of their Frisco home was shaken with news of an incalculable event, and their hearts and minds turned towards their beloved Indonesia.

The world community was shaken, too with the news of the devastating Indian Ocean Tsunami that ravaged South Asia and the islands of Indonesia Dec. 26, 2004.

According to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), more than 200,000 people in eight countries died as the massive wall of water – traveling 500 miles per hour – washed across the costal areas of Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Perhaps 50,000 or more are still missing, and another half million are homeless, living in soggy tents with earthen floors a year after the waters came.

On the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra, the Aceh Province was especially ravaged, with some estimates that more than 160,000 perished in that northwest sector alone. One-third of the provincial capital city of Banda Aceh was devastated.

The O’Briens lived on Sumatra from 1960 to 1971, serving as Baptist missionaries, and during that time they developed an appreciation and love for the Indonesian culture and people, which further personalized the Tsunami for them, Bill O’Brien said.

That emotional and spiritual connection to the island and its people drew them back, to provide assistance in any way they could.

“I have a deep identification with the Indonesian people,” he said April 26, on the eve of departing to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city for a preliminary assessment. “This tsunami disaster really hit home with me, although I never went to Aceh while I lived there; I spent most of my time in the south of Sumatra. There is still a deep connection of heart and mind with the people there.”

Summoning up a remarkable skill for networking and rallying people to causes, O’Brien and others formed “Compassion Frisco” in early summer, a city-to-city and heart-to-heart Tsunami relief organization, embarking on a five-year mission to help Aceh rebuild.

“Compassion Frisco was birthed in response to this tragedy,” he said. “We knew that after the relief efforts had been exhausted, and after many of the non-governmental organizations had gone home after laboring in the rebuilding phase, that the staggering unmet needs of the people would cry out for attention from anyone who dares to persevere.”

O’Brien, 72, and wife Dellanna, also 72, decided the best way to help was on the ground, so they made a decision to return to Sumatra for three-month sojourns, knitting together intentions and deeds to help build a foundation for rebirth. Speaking at a local coffee shop this week after returning from the first of many of their three-month stays, O’Brien spoke of the misery that remained almost a year after the Tsunami and the hope rising amidst it.

“Some amazing partnerships have emerged in the first three months we have been living there,” he said. “We are working with catholic relief services to rebuild two to (Banda Aceh’s) city parks. We are partnering with UN-Habitat (the United Nations Human Settlements Program) in a neglected village 45 minutes down the coast from Banda Aceh, and Dellanna is working with the women and children in trauma counseling, and getting funds for the women to start a micro-business enterprise. They wanted to start a business to earn money to provide for their families, so we are helping them to do that. They are starting a donut business to sell in stores along the coast.”

O’Brien said another agency, World Vision International, a global Christian relief and developmental organization, in concert with Indonesian partners, are in the process of raising money to build a five-inch pipeline to channel pure water to the village from a mountain stream almost a mile above. Compassion Frisco is also working with other Acehean agencies to revitalize a health clinic and community center. The health clinic is especially symbolic in the rebuilding efforts, he said.

“There is a tree in the front of the clinic, a building that was badly damaged by the Tsunami, that survived,” he said. “They call it the ‘Tree of Life’. Not because it stood, but because as many as 20 people clung to its branches as the waters raged around them to keep from being swept away. They held on and they survived – truly a miracle.”

O’Brien said Compassion Frisco’s efforts recall the old proverb of “teach a man to fish and he is fed for life.” It is a mechanism for helping them help themselves, he said.

“Compassion Frisco did not have a concrete plan when we went; we had areas we thought we should focus on,” he said. “Our efforts are concentrated on the training of trainers.”

O’Brien said balancing the ephemeral and eternal worlds is the heart of their work.

“It all comes down to friendships and trust, all based on relationships,” he explained. “We don’t separate the sacred from the secular, and that’s how we operate. We love God, but we also love our neighbor. It’s the agape kind of love Jesus spoke of. It’s an unconditional caring for your neighbor. It is love without reciprocity. That’s what it truly means to be a servant, to direct your efforts solely toward the benefit of others without regard for self.”

O’Brien presented plans for his travels to Aceh to Frisco Mayor Mike Simpson and the City Council prior to embarking, drawing the support of the city’s administration. Simpson wrote a letter to the mayor of Banda Aceh, expressing Frisco’s desires to partner in a city-to-city program for assistance. Although stressing the city could not lend public funds to O’Brien’s efforts, Simpson said the city would support any individual citizen’s or business’ efforts, giving Frisco’s “stamp of approval.” Dudley Raymond, parks capital project superintendent, flew to Aceh at his own expense to consult with Acehean counterparts about rebuilding Banda Aceh parks and constructing a grand park dedicated to Tsunami victims.

“We see Compassion Frisco as coming alongside other networks that are effectively engaging the people and the problems (in Aceh),” O’Brien said. “It is a unique time to be at this crucial intersection of need and opportunity.”

Bill and Dellanna O’Brien plan to return Jan. 3 for another three months, continuing their dual-pronged work of helping Aceheans rebuild and keeping their plight in the world view of the rest of us.

Compassion Frisco

7548 Preston Road #141-172

Frisco, Texas 75034

214-505-3695

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