Hello everyone,

The month has passed so fast and at high tech speed that one can be caught in the current and be swept away only to be found in a surrounding and place so unfamiliar. This can be so discomforting that the response of many to situations like displacement and dislocation takes much time to recover if not at all.

Conflict is a current that can up root us from a place of comfort and secure dwellings. It can be violent and subtle, but what ever way in which the current comes against us how we respond is so very important.

Along with my wife (Savi) & our three daughters (Dhyneika,Tanika & Shelomi) I too have faced many and varied currents and still do. When the flow is taking you along smoothly to your destiny it is so lovely, but when it is against you then it is altogether a different scenario. I am grateful that the grace of God has taught us as a family to still swim in these currents of life without been tossed to and fro. So here are a few of the lessons we have learned and it is my prayer that you will gain some encouragement and be well equipped to swim strong even against the worst of currents in life...and boy they come like a flood.

What I refer to here as lessons of life is the anchor of the soul. That is what we do, we anchor and wait till the current passes. Removal or Reaction are two ways which people commonly respond to conflict.

Removal involves denial where one tries to ignore the issues, hoping against hope things will pass as time passes, running away in fear, even suicide or again living in absolute denial. On the other hand there is the more aggressive manner of facing conflict…… Reaction. This will manifest in litigation, vengeance, violent reaction and even murder. But now I will share of a more excellent way of grace working through love - Reconciliation.

Reconciliation begins with the willingness to lay down ones thinking and seek afresh through, forgiveness, overlooking faults and prejudices. It involves a willingness to seek the solution and not focus on the problems. It involves the grace to accept the other in spite of disagreements and yet work towards the solutions.

We have seen these principles of love work in our lives and while not compromising with our own fundamental beliefs seen miracles take place out of conflict. We now see conflict not as a hazard that threatens to sweep us off our feet and leave us dislocated and bruised, nor an obstacle that has to be violently removed but an opportunity to usher in benefits that serve people at all levels raising the levels of living into higher dimensions of love.

I thank God that in the midst of trouble waters in Sri Lanka & India, at what ever level, Mission Rainbow reflects the glorious colors of love and grace. The thrilling joy that has come before us is the opportunity for our team in Sri Lanka to serve needy and lonely children along with fellow Sri Lankans who belong to a different religion and back ground.

In India we have now shine into a place called Cudaloor where we serve many widows again of diverse back grounds and religion. News and pictures of this work is on the way and I know that you will be blessed to see that the Rainbow is growing. We want to thank Pastors Sam & Reuban along with their families and team for their labor of love and work of faith. We do not want to be unmindful of all you wonderful partners and donors who continue to serve through your gifts and support. We know that God is not unmindful of your work ad you will be blessed more than you can ask or imagine. Trust that you will be blessed to see your contribution has worked towards the Ministry of Reconciliation.

I take this opportunity again along with Savi and the Team to bless you and assure you of our prayers in the wonderful name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed are the Peace Makers

Neil
Head of Mission Rainbow Intl

(CNN) -- Sri Lanka's president has dismissed allegations of corruption following the December tsunami that claimed more than 30,000 lives and displaced nearly a million others in the South Asian nation.

Speaking to a conference hosted by CNN in Atlanta, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga said she did not know why the media was saying that tsunami reconstruction work was not happening in Sri Lanka or that there was corruption.

She said there had been more than 120 visits by heads of state, including United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, to Sri Lanka, and all have applauded the work being done.

"Every single one of them has told us, told the newspapers in Sri Lanka and abroad, that Sri Lanka is an exemplary case of how well the tsunami reconstruction, or any reconstruction after a natural disaster, has been handled," she said.

Relief efforts following natural disasters are regarded as sometimes vulnerable to corruption. Some aid agencies have complained that goods have been left sitting on Sri Lanka docks waiting to be cleared as custom officials demand payment.

Five months after the worst natural disaster in living memory, officials in Sri Lanka say they hope to finish building permanent housing for the majority of victims by year's end.

Around 77,561 houses were either partially or completely damaged in the tsunami, with many of those left homeless living in temporary accommodation centers in hospitals, schools and churches.

Meanwhile, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been visiting Japan, where he discussed relief efforts and measures such as a tsunami warning system with the Japanese government.

Earlier, Yudhoyono spoke to CNN about the nation's experience with the calamity, which claimed more than 128,000 lives in Indonesia.

"We learnt many lessons, we learnt that our national disaster management system was inadequate to deal with the enormous scale of the devastations."

"We are now trying to improve our central system to deal with future catastrophes, including the establishment of an early warning system for the Indian Ocean," he said.

More than 176,000 people died after the massive earthquake sent out waves that hit 11 nations bordering the Indian Ocean. Another 50,000 people are still missing.

He said it was not practical to relocate those who did not want to move away from the beach front. He earlier made a brief visit to the island's eastern town of Kalmunai, one of the worst hit.

Clinton, who arrived here from neighbouring India, was to travel to the Maldives later Saturday before heading off to Indonesia on Sunday.

SRI LANKA: More and More Tsunami Pledges, But Where Are the Houses?
Taken from the Yahoo!News website
Thu May 25th 2005
Amantha Perera, Inter Press Service (IPS)

HABARADUWA, Sri Lanka, May 25 (IPS) - In his 68 years, V T Piyasena has never lived through anything like the last five months. He lost a daughter and his son-in-law in the Dec. 26 tsunami, and was left with a partially damaged house.

''It has been absolute hell, I never want to go through it again,'' he told IPS standing inside his half-brick house, half-tent home near Habaraduwa in southern Sri Lanka.

Last week international donors pledged an unprecedented 3 billion U.S. dollars in tsunami reconstruction aid to Sri Lanka during the Sri Lanka Development Forum held in the central city of Kandy. The pledge, at the latest conversion rate would be 300 billion rupees. But it did not make any difference to Piyasena.

''No one knows what we have suffered in the last five months, look around, we are living in a tent, it is terribly hot, we still collect water from bowsers and there is no news where or when we will get new houses,'' Piyasena's wife Nanda Gamage said.

Like many other tsunami victims, Piyasena and his family believe they would only benefit from aid once permanent houses are built.

Part of the frustration is due to the slow reconstruction effort, which followed the massive emergency relief, soon after the tsunami hit.

On Dec. 26, the world's strongest earthquake in 40 years shook the region, with its epicentre under the sea in the northernmost tip of the Indonesian archipelago. The resulting tsunamis wreaked havoc around the Bay of Bengal, from Sri Lanka, India and the low-lying Maldives in the west, to Thailand and Malaysia in the east. Across Asia, about 290,000 people are either dead or missing after the tsunamis.

In Sri Lanka, the Asian tsunami killed over 30,000 and left a million people internally displaced.

Soon after the tsunami's destructive waves lashed the South-east Asian island, hundreds of local and foreign aid groups and volunteers poured into the disaster areas. But their efforts have not been matched by the reconstruction programme spearheaded by the government.

A day before the donor conference, the Sri Lankan government said that out of an estimated total of 77,561 houses only 119 had been completed by May 15.

''The government officials are yet to even identify where we are to relocate. There is no information. How can we trust that aid will help us? asked H Punyasiri, whose house like Piyasena's is located within the 100 metre buffer zone where new construction is banned.

Government agencies last week said that around 55,000 new homes would have to be built to replace those destroyed within the buffer zone. However the
World Bank upped the figure to 70,000.

''The proposed policy (of the buffer zone) would result in over 60 percent of the damaged housing units (about 70,000) in the coastal belt requiring relocation outside the buffer zone,'' the Bank said in a report titled 'The Economy, the Tsunami and Poverty Reduction'.

It is those who had their houses within the buffer zone who feel the most victimised.

Wilson Gunathileke spends his days sitting in front of his wooden temporary house, near the famous tourist beach at Polhena in Matara, near the southern town of Galle.

''Some of these officials don't know where the beach is, they have no idea about the sea. Anyway by the time they get to us, they have already made the decisions,'' he told IPS. ''For the last four months I have lived either in a tent or a wooden shack and there is no sign of that changing.''

If change does not take place fast enough, some of the donors warned at the meeting, which ended on May 17, that problems will aggravate even further.

''Rising poverty and unemployment, worsened by the tsunami and slow development in conflict-affected areas, threaten Sri Lanka's social sector gains,'' said the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in a report released at last week's review of aid to the island.

The report notes the tsunami-magnified development challenges -- persistent slow growth, rising unemployment and malnutrition in rural areas and the conflict districts in the north and east.

''The tsunami disaster has increased the vulnerability of a large proportion of the very people whose income was to be uplifted under the government's poverty reduction programme,'' the report said.

More than a quarter of the affected population is estimated to be living below the poverty line of 1,423 rupees (14 U.S. dollars) per month. The total loss of jobs due to the tsunami is approximately 200,000.

Economic growth forecasts have been cut by one percentage point to 5.0 for 2005. The Central Bank says the country needs six to eight percent growth to tackle poverty and unemployment. Last year growth was a 5.4 percent.