Compassion has pledged $375,000 in a major relief initiative to tsunami-stricken Aceh, Indonesia, identifying and caring for orphaned children and delivering food, clean water, medical care and counseling this week to specific families in crisis. Aceh's death toll from the weekend quake and tsunami is estimated at more than 100,000 people, including an estimated five percent of the 300,000 in Aceh's capital, Banda Aceh.

Through the Tsunami Disaster Relief Fund, Compassion is providing this immediate relief aid to orphans and families in Aceh in a three-phased relief plan over the next three months. Relief activities in the three phases of this Compassion initiative are as follows:

Phase One -- Initial Emergency Response Activities

• Kitchen providing two meals per day
• Medical treatment two-three days per week
• Emergency shelter construction
• Identification of unaccompanied children and their care
• Trauma counseling
• Distribution of basic household and hygiene kits

Phase Two -- Transition Response Activities

• Distribution of dry rations
• Distribution of cooking kits
• Continued medical care
• Continued counseling
• Continued efforts to reunite children with parents

While emergency relief is a response Compassion usually limits, the magnitude of this tragedy, combined with the enormous impact it has had on the lives of children, compel us to move beyond our normal model and provide a response in line with the words we so often read in the Gospels: "And Jesus was moved with compassion."

Compassion will also continue to monitor the situation in Asia for other partnership opportunities with local evangelical organizations to help as many disaster victims as possible.