On a Christmas card we received this year, we discovered these powerful words:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are back home,
When the Shepherds have returned to new flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
- To find the lost,
- To heal the broken
- To feed the hungry,
- To release the prisoners,
- To rebuild the nations,
- To bring peace among people,
- To make music in the heart.

Or, in other words, to do the work of Christ.

These words are always relevant, but never more so than with the Christmas of 2004, for beneath the sea, a powerful earthquake – sudden, unexpected, deadly – occurred producing a tsunami that swept ashore in 12 countries in Southeast Asia, killing more than 140,000 people in one of the most devastat…