Nelson pointed out that Evan has been jailed twice in Sri Lanka.  One time he sprayed mace at a guy who came at him waving a machete and the man filed a complaint.  Another time Evan was accused of helping the Tamil Tigers.
"We were often subject to military checks as we traveled from the city to the village," said Nelson. 
Added Clayton, who turned into a Sri Lanka history buff, "The military stopped us three times to check for Tamil terror-ists.  The Tamil Tigers are in the north and they want to split the country into two separate parts.  They speak a different language.  They speak Tamil.  The majority of the country is Buddhist and speak Sinhalese.  The Tamils have darker skin than the Sinhalese."
"The Tamil Tigers had suicide boats while we were there," continued Clayton, "but they were caught by the police.  About 10% of their 20 million population is Tamil."
In explaining another reason for Evan's troubles in his disaster stricken homeland, Audrey said, "Evan picked out a village he felt he could rebuild.  It's where he once went to school and has relatives.  Other villagers get jealous because it's not their turn yet.  Helping them actually creates a rivalry."
"It's people acting out of despera-tion," continued the understanding visitor from Victoria.  "But this is Evan's pas-sion.  It strictly came out of the tsunami devastation.  He needs volunteers like us to add new markets to help raise money."
"It's a huge, almost impossible, task to correct all the problems," she admitted, "but does that mean you shouldn't pitch in to help one village if you can't help them all?"
Clayton gives the statistics from memory:  "There are 1,000,000 homeless people in Sri Lanka since the tsunami, 6,300 missing, 31,000 killed, 443,000 displaced, and $1.5 billion in destroyed property."

Articulate and wise for his years, Nelson said that instead of building houses in Sri Lanka, they built relation-ships.  "It became a mission to get to know the people and teach them English," he said.
Said Clayton, "I was happy we got to teach them English.  We got to communi-cate with them.  We took a trip with some kids in a van and we taught them English four hours each way."
The teaching of language crossed both aisles, however.  Clayton showed his notebooks outlined with hundreds of Sinhalese vocabulary words that he learned.  The Sinhala alphabet has characters that are totally foreign to our Greek alphabet; they're more like Chinese characters.  Of course, China is also a country in Asia.
Acknowledging the changing mission of their mission trip, Audrey said, "When Evan was in jail we got to spend a lot of time with the villagers.  The trip turned into a beautiful thing.  We had more time to bond and make relationships.  They are exceptional people.  We saw community."

Sri Lanka became an independent country in 1948 after centuries of occupation by others, including the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Tamils from southern India, the Sinhalese from northern India, and finally Great Britain.  Before 1948 the island was called Ceylon.

Nelson, Clayton, and their mother can fill in many blank spaces for almost any question regarding the island and its people.  "The temperature was normally about 75 to 85 degrees and humid," said Nelson.  "It's not that far from the equator.  Roads are paved, but very poorly.  They're also crowded.  There are lots of cars and vans and motorcycles.
"The roads are windy and bad," agreed Clayton.  "It took us two hours to go 25 miles." 
"People can walk right out their door and see their friends at any time," said Clayton about the villages.  "It's not like here where you have to go somewhere else to see your friends.
"It was a life changing experience," said Audrey.  "The boys were definitely different when we got back to Victoria.  I notice more softness, more generosity."
"I'd like to go back at least twice a year," said the enthusiastic Clayton.  Cost of a roundtrip flight to Colombo is about $1,000.  Hotel rooms can be found for $60 a night.  Food is very reasonable.

John and Audrey Fox moved to the Parkside Estates neighborhood in Victoria in 1990.  Originally from the Hastings and Mound areas of Minnesota, respectively, they met at Gustavus Adolphus College, which is located in St. Peter, Minnesota.
They married on July 18^th, 1981, shortly after graduation from Gustavus.  Audrey graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1986.  After three years of internship in Milwaukee, where Nelson was born, they moved to Victoria.
John, husband and father, is Vice President of Professional Services for SWAT, a software testing company, where he works in sales, marketing, and recruiting.  While his family was in Sri Lanka, John went to California on a business trip and played golf in Arizona.
Thank you, John, for giving up more of your family's time in order for them to help inform and educate the editor and readers of the Gazette about a people and a country so far from the city limits of Victoria.
Thank you, Audrey, Nelson, and Clayton, for your stories and impressions about an event that grabbed the world's attention for so many weeks and months, and retains the attention of those who continue to suffer the effects of the tsunami.  Your life changing experience gives everyone new insights into a world that gets smaller every day.