NELSON, BC—When Jim Reimer, pastor of Kootenay Christian Fellowship, suggested the church adopt an Indian village devastated by last month’s tsunami, he didn’t know just how popular the idea would be.

Interest in adopting a village took off after Reimer posted the idea on a community web site shortly before the new year. Within days, the Vancouver news media learned of it and it became a national story—and Reimer became a local media celebrity.

The concept “resonates with the heartfelt need that we have, and that is to be able to personally touch a community,” says Reimer. “When we give money and we can feel that it has a personal touch to it, it feels better.”

One man in Victoria responded by putting out the challenge on the internet. “So now they’ve got a web site and they’ve got a database and they’re connecting villages. Just about every major city in B.C. is now talking about adopting a village,” says Reimer.

Yet Reimer himself got the idea from hearing Squamish town councillor Jeff Dawson talk about it on the radio. And Dawson says he got the idea from his children on Boxing Day while he was watching the tsunami tragedy unfold on television.

“I looked under the tree at a couple of puzzles my young children had received, and I thought, ‘Bingo! If we each take a piece of the puzzle, and we each adopt a village, we can put the million pieces of this puzzle back together again,’” he says. “All of a sudden the unmanageable becomes manageable.”

Within hours of CBC and CTV picking up the story, he says, “the phones and the e-mails went nuts.

It was a wonderful problem to have, but one we were not expecting, frankly.”

Dawson, who attends a Roman Catholic church, says not only does adopting a village bring emergency aid to places likely to be overlooked, it also means long-term assistance. “By that we mean five to 10 years and very much a lifelong commitment.”

With help from a friend who ministers in southern India, Reimer’s church adopted the village of Poonjeri. Its 300 inhabitants are among the lowest castes in India—and were chased away by indigenous relief agencies that had come to aid other communities.

“We wired $1,000 right off the bat,” says Reimer. “We made a commitment to feed these people for the next two months, until they can get back on their feet again.”

The church also plans to replace fishing boats destroyed in the disaster and open the village’s first-ever school.

Christians in southern India are also adopting villages with the help of Canadian churches.

Sam Viswasam, associate pastor of Royal Heights Baptist Church in Delta, says a group of Baptist churches to which his brother belongs plans to adopt Nemmelikuppam, a village that was almost completely washed away.

“There are a lot of orphans there. They have to re-build the school. And also they’re planning to put some roofs on the houses which lost everything,” says Viswasam.

And despite India’s law against proselytizing, he says Christians are not afraid to share their faith. “[The Baptists have] even written a new tract to address the questions and issues people are facing now, so they would have a clear message of the gospel, especially the love of Christ.”

But it is not only Southeast Asians whose lives God is touching through this tragedy.

“One of the items I put on a to-do list prior to Christmas was: find a purpose in my life—and I got the purpose,” says Dawson. “I kind of figured God had higher priorities for this middle-aged father and husband in Squamish, B.C. He answered that very, very quickly.”