They are the children of Don and Lillian Dwight, Covenant missionaries to Taiwan. Matt, 17, and Andy, 15, have their experience detailed in the current edition of Breakaway, a magazine for teenagers published by Focus on the Family. Evangelical Covenant Church pastor Greg Asimakoupoulos wrote the full-length feature.
Several months before traveling to Phi Phi Island, a popular vacation spot near Thailand, Don tried to reserve a beachfront cottage, but they all had been rented. So he reserved one on the hillside further away from the beach.
In what they say started out as a “perfect day” – December 26 – the family had breakfast at a hotel restaurant on the beach. The Dwights then trekked back up the hill to change into swimsuits.
While they were changing, the incredible tsunami wave hit with devastating force. The restaurant at which they had been eating just 15 minutes earlier was completely submerged under water. The beachside bungalows the Dwights had tried to reserve were ripped apart and had disappeared.
The family was able to escape the island and return home over the course of the next several days.
To read more of the gripping details as described by the Dwight sons, please see Tsunami Survivors.
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.
