WARSHEIKH, Somalia – Abdurashid has a new boat. He and his family are beneficiaries of Eastern Mennonite Missions and Mennonite Central Committee tsunami funds money given to SAACID, a Somali non-governmental organization that works in the coastal village of Warsheikh, 60 kilometers north of Mogadishu.

Villagers built the small fishing boats under a grove of trees on the sandy bank of the Indian Ocean. From trucked-in lumber, they built, hand-sawed, and planed the little boats; then they pitched them with shark liver that had decomposed into thick tar-like goo by baking in the sun.

Abdurashid’s village is one of the oldest villages on the coast of Somalia. It rises out of low sand dunes in the bend of a small inlet. Sharp coral rock cliffs define the northern end of the inlet. A mosque, more than 200 years old, hugs the cliff. Damaged by tsunami waves, the old mosque is now abandoned, and villagers worship in a mosque further from the shore.

On the beach beneath the village and the temporary boat building yard lies a large boat beached in the sand. It’s a “gift” of the tsunami waves. No one knows where it came from, but its name suggests a Muslim owner.

We joined Abdurahman, the village sheik, and other villagers for a meeting, followed by a lunch of spaghetti and goat meat sauce. He recounted for us seven generations of his fathers who have been the village sheiks. “We are very religious,” he said. “But we are not extremists. We do not ask our women to veil their faces.”

Clair Good, EMM’s representative to Africa, and I were pleased to tell Abdurahman that Christians in North America had given their tithes to the church that in turn gave the money to be used in this village. Muslims understand the idea of tithing and are also taught to give a portion of their income to those in need.

We ended our meeting with a Somali proverb, “One finger cannot wipe a face.” Truly, the face of this village has been wiped with a global hand: Warsheikh villagers and Mogadishu boat builders worked on the boats; SAACID, who carried out the project, received funds from EMM and MCC; adults and children from North American Mennonite churches expressed their care for those who were affected by the tsunami halfway around the world.