ABSTRACT
At the time of the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004, in which over 300,000 persons where killed, 168,000 in Indonesia alone, I was lecturing in Central Java in Indonesia. The island of Java was relatively unaffected by the tsunami, since it is sheltered from the Indian Ocean by the larger island of Sumatra. Nevertheless, everyone in Indonesia was shocked at the widespread destruction and loss of life, and there was much soul-searching in an effort to understand God’s will in such a terrible disaster.
