PLNU and Tsunami Relief

It began with Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) students sitting in guest homes on a tour with their music group right after Christmas. After giving a concert that day, members of Pointless, an all-male accapella group, watched television news accounts of the tsunami that destroyed coastal villages in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and elsewhere, killing hundreds of thousands of people. They decided then that a portion of the proceeds of their tour should go toward assisting the tsunami survivors.

"They contacted me as soon as they returned to San Diego," said Michael Pitts, PLNU's chaplain and vice president for spiritual development. "They said, 'We know PLNU will be giving. We have $1 thousand to contribute.'"

Pitts contacted Heart to Heart International and arranged a satellite phone connection with Gary Morsch, M.D., the organization's president and founder, who was already in Sri Lanka. Morsch spoke by phone to the entire student body at a chapel service and challenged them to look for ways they could assist.

"Everyone can do something," Morsch said.

Paul Kenyon, the chair of PLNU's music department, gave benefit piano concerts throughout San Diego. Pointless gave a benefit concert for several hundred students and neighbors. Students brought offerings to the altar at the conclusion of chapel services. Pitts said that wrapped within some single dollar bills, were several $100 bills.

"I know that was a real sacrifice for students," he said. "But they wanted to do something."

But not everyone had money or talents to give, so students participated in other ways. More than 800 students signed up with the campus' Sodexho food service to donate at least one meal's equivalent per week for a month. Most of them contributed one meal a week for the rest of the semester. Sodexho in turn donated the dollar equivalent to Heart to Heart. Other students conducted a "water fast" for a month, drinking only water and donating the equivalent that they would have spent on coffee and sodas.

Within three weeks the combined efforts of giving and fasting by the students raised more than $40,000. And with Heart to Heart's ability to turn $1 donated into $25 worth of medicine and supplies, the students were able to raise the equivalent of $1 million in aid.

"They caught the vision that Christians can reach across the globe to assist the needy," Pitts said. "That's what Christians do, and I was proud of them."

Note: All amounts are expressed in U.S. dollars.

Dean Nelson is director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University.

Holiness Today, March/April 2005

Please note: This article was originally published in 2005. All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at that time but may have since changed.