O God, that Great Tsunami

PASSION CHORALE 7.6.7.6 D

O God, that great tsunami has stunned us one and all;
Our neighbors reel in anguish while homes and cities fall.
O God of wind and water who made the sea and sky,
Amid such great destruction, we mournfully ask "Why?"

How many folk have perished? We can't their bodies find:
Life will not be the same now for those they've left behind.
More than a million mourners are grieving to their core;
O Jesus, Friend and Savior, you suffer with the poor.

Economies are ruined and lives in tatters lie,
Sewage is washed down-river while lonely orphans cry:
O Spirit, send your comfort and give us faith that cares.
For when our neighbors suffer, our lives are bound with theirs.

 

Text: "The Storm Came to Honduras" © 1998 Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. Adaptation © 2004 by Peter Holden.

Tune: Passion Chorale Hans Leo Hassler, 1601, Harm. Johann Sebastian Bach, 1729 ("O Sacred Head, Now Wounded").

The United Methodist Office of Worship has the hymn text with music:  http://www.gbod.org/worship/music/greattsunami-gillette.pdf

Free one-time permission is given to congregations that are using the hymn to support ecumenical relief efforts in response to the earthquake and tsunami of December 2004 in Asia.

[12-30-04]

Background on the Hymn:

An Australian pastor, Peter Holden, has done an adaptation of a six-year old hymn for the new disaster caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Asia and Africa. Holden served as a pastor in Indonesia before retiring to Australia. His adaptation changes some of the verses in "The Storm Came to Honduras" while keeping other lines. The new hymn also keeps well-known tune of "Passion Chorale" by Hans Leo Hassler (1601) that was harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1729 and is associated with the popular hymn "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded".

In November 1998 Carolyn Winfrey Gillette wrote a hymn, "The Storm Came to Honduras," in response to Hurricane Mitch's devastation in Central America. Many congregations in the USA and overseas used this hymn to encourage support for what the United Nations described as the "worst natural disaster in western hemisphere in the 20th century." The hymn was widely shared on the Internet, posted on numerous denominational and ecumenical web sites and featured twice on national PBS-TV. Holden and Gillette hope the new hymn will encourage individuals and congregations to support the relief efforts responding to new disaster.

Many churches have used the hymns of Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. Her "In Times of Great Decision" hymn for the November 2004 election was sung by thousands of congregations and featured in a National Council of Churches news story that was carried by Presbyterian News Service, United Methodist News Service, Episcopal News Service as well as Religion News Service story that was in The Christian Century magazine. "O God, Our Words Cannot Express", a hymn she wrote on September 11, 2001, was used by thousands of churches, featured on national PBS-TV in the United States and the BBC-TV in the United Kingdom, and made into a music video by Noel Paul Stookey of "Peter, Paul and Mary" and Emmy-winner Pete Staman. Church World Service, the ecumenical humanitarian agency, has a Web page with links to postings of 15 of her hymns. She was commissioned to write a hymn for the inauguration service for Churches Uniting in Christ. The United Methodist Church promoted her hymn for peace ("God, Whose Love is Always Stronger") before the war with Iraq. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has sent one of Gillette's hymns to all of their congregations. The American Baptists sang her jubilee hymn at their national meeting. The new Episcopal hymnal supplement has four of her hymns in it. The Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Geneva Press has published a book of her hymns titled "Gifts of Love: New Hymns for Today's Worship." She and her husband Bruce serve as the co-pastors of the Limestone Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware.

Peter Holden is a retired minister of the Uniting Church in Australia who most recently served as the pastor of the Jakarta Community Church in Indonesia. In 1963 he was ordained a minister of the Methodist Church of Australasia, having been trained through the church's seminary as well as the Melbourne College of Divinity. He served pastorates in the Methodist Church in Australia and in the United Methodist Church in the USA before his first ecumenical appointment as Executive Officer of the South Australian Council of Churches in 1977. Since that time he has also served as the Executive Director of World Christian Action (the overseas aid and development arm of the National Council of Churches in Australia) and as founding Executive Officer of the Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism (a Third World based and controlled ecumenical body). In these positions he traveled extensively, wrote more than enough, spoke at several international forums and was frequently sought for media comment.

Contact Information for Peter Holden:

6/67-69 Henry Parry Drive
Gosford 2250 Australia
Phone and Fax (+61 2) 4322 2387 Mobile 0400 331 521
Email: holdens@bigpond.net.au

Contact Information for Carolyn Winfrey Gillette:

Limestone Presbyterian Church, 3201 Limestone Road, Wilmington, Delaware 19808-2198
Church website: www.limestonepresbyterian.org
Office Phone: (302) 994-5646
Home Phone: (302)-994-0220
Email: bcgillette@comcast.net