By James A. Mitchell, VeAhavta Press Officer

It's a matter of numbers, for some people. Military analysts are trying to tally those killed by the war, a morbid game of keeping score in the renewed war between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Others question the numerical age of the dozens killed Monday when military air strikes targeted either (depending upon whom you ask) a children's home near Jaffna or a Tamil Tiger training ground. Those killed -- mostly girls between the ages of 16 and 19 -- were either students taking Red Cross first-aid courses, or Tamils being groomed for the 20-plus-year-old civil war.
The Associated Press on Wednesday reported that a Nordic monitoring mission "lost count" of the casualties from recent weeks. Near-daily incidents have taken place in Sri Lanka's north and east since a late July dispute began over a water supply point near Trincomalee; after four weeks of violence, observers said that more than 1,000 people have died in 2006 from the hostilities.
While the officers of both the GoSL and LTTE debate the purpose of the targeted compound hit by air strikes Monday, Grace Care Center Manager Diane McLaughlin lost interest in counting bodies as if they were hypothetical statistics.
"Either way, who gives a green light to bomb an orphanage," McLaughlin wondered. "For God's sake: They're children."
McLaughlin's thoughts, and those of VeAhavta volunteers both in Sri Lanka and America, are focused on the children of Grace Care Center, the elders of Mercy Home and the greater Trincomalee community. The fighting in nearby Muttur sent thousands of innocent villagers fleeing for their lives. By Tuesday, United Nations officials tried to keep pace with the displaced persons in northern Sri Lanka: More than 50,000 are estimated to have been left homeless just in August; well over 100,000 are left without food, water and medical resources in 2006.
The relief crisis being created by man rivals nature's worst. Northern Sri Lanka is still recovering from the 500,000 displaced people left destitute by the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami.
Michigan Dr. Cheryl Huckins, who helped plan and launch Mercy Home, was at Grace Care Center earlier this month, said the humanitarian challenge is on the same scale of the historic disaster. VeAhavta staff continues working with an informal network of relief organizations, as churches, schools and other properties in the region have become improvised camps for those left homeless.
VeAhavta's overseas agent, Dr. Rev. S. Jeyanesan, said that his Batticaloa-based St. John's Church is supplying what it can to refugees, "Including children and women who are starving and without food," Jeyanesan said. Items being supplied so far include dry-ration milk, water, medicine, bed supplies and other immediate-need items.
Tom McLaughlin, a VeAhavta volunteer and physical therapist from California (no immediate relation to Diane), said that the resiliency of the Grace Girls and Mercy Home residents can be seen in a number of ways, reflective of a nation's spirit: "Things are bad," McLaughlin understood their message, "but there is hope that they are going to get better."
McLaughlin watched the elders, each having assumed a daily chore; press on each day to assume there will be a tomorrow. He watched one Mercy resident spend up to seven hours a day crouched before an endless field of weeds waiting to be pulled. The elderly woman, whom McLaughlin called, "A 65-pound human Roto-tiller," took pride in the humble accomplishment, reflective of the resolve to live.
If hope remains in a hopeless situation, it can be found in the spirit and resiliency of the people being helped, the human beings behind the numbers.
"This is their everyday life," Huckins said of the Grace children and elders of Mercy Home. Throughout periods of seemingly non-stop explosions earlier this month -- each echo representing additional fatalities -- Huckins said the orphan girls celebrated a birthday and elders went about their daily routine.
"This is the background they live in," Huckins said. "Every day you just do what you can."

(Our thanks to Jim "Grasshopper" Mitchell for this report.)

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