The twentysomething pair were among a 14-member team from Send Hope, Kalihi-based Surfing the Nations' outreach arm, who spent about three weeks in the oceanside town of Arugam Bay, helping rebuild the area.

About six weeks before their trip, the area had been a bustling little resort town on the Pacific coast of eastern Sri Lanka. Then the Dec. 26 tsunami ravaged the coastline, and it was left with little more than sand and upended trees, having borne the brunt of the giant wall of water.

The surf missionaries weren't exactly prepared for what they'd find upon arrival.

"I knew it was going to be awful," said Russell, 22. "But I was still shocked. There's no way you can prepare yourself for that."

In Sri Lanka, their days were busy: They cleared the land of debris and began to build a palm-frond-covered shack that would become a restaurant. Their group also set up some private enterprises, including purchasing two tuktuks (think taxi crossed with a golf cart) to lease to now-jobless Sri Lankans.

In the afternoons, they'd hit the waves.

At first, they say, the Sri Lankans stared at them as if they were nuts while they went swimming or took advantage of the soft winter surf break just offshore.

"People were just watching us in the water," Johansson recalled. "Kids would just stand around and watch."

Cindy Bauer, director of finance for Surfing the Nations, recalled: "The water buffalo were the only ones at the beaches. We saw no one out in the water except us."

The Surfing the Nations nondenominational ministry holds a Bible studies class at its Kalihi Valley compound, which includes a rec center and recording studio. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Cindi Bauer, inside the surfer ministry compound in Kalihi Valley, is director of finance for Surfing the Nations. But the traveling "missionaries" each pay their own way on relief trips. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Bob McBride helps a Sri Lankan crew build a restaurant. Tom Bauer

Getting the locals back in the water was imperative, Bauer explained. For many of the displaced and now homeless tsunami victims, the water had been their livelihood. They fished in Arugam Bay. They served the tourists who swam in its lapping waves.

But it was easy to see why the local residents would avoid the very thing that swallowed up their family members and left their homes a pile of rubble.

"It had been 42 days since they'd been in the water," Bauer said. "They needed somebody to get in with them, someone who was not afraid."

Surfing the Nations is a non-denominational missionary group created in 1997 by Bauer's husband, Tom, initially through Grace Bible Church.

In one of their past trips, she said, they had met up with R. Johnson, a Sri Lankan from Arugam Bay. He became part of the team. When they heard about the tsunami, they started worrying about him, but he called a few days later.

"When are you coming?" he asked.

They dropped their plans for a snowboarding mission trip in Iran and switched to a surfing mission trip in Sri Lanka.

The way it works is, the young adults who serve as missionaries have to find ways to fund their own trips. Once there, it's not all work or all play. They find ways to serve the beleaguered villages they visit — extending a helping hand as well as spreading their Christian faith — sprinkled with plenty of surfing breaks.

Though it wasn't really prime surfing season for this world-class surf break, this particular trip had its high points, Johansson said.

She initially hails from Sweden but now is living at the mission's Kalihi Valley compound, carved out of a former kim chee factory — the warehouse is now the rec center where they store their boards, the giant refrigerator now a recording studio.

She pulled out a plastic seat at the front of the compound under its giant tent, to tell the tale.

"I'd been on missions before," Johansson said, "but this was all about building relationships."

She met some young Muslim girls in Arugam Bay. They told her their stories of the tsunami, and she sensed their deep embarrassment when they recounted how clothes had been ripped from women by the water — "the shame of being naked," Johansson said, shaking her head — and the tragic aftermath.

People went to count their family members and discovered the missing, Bauer said.

After working alongside the villagers, helping to remove the larger debris so they could level the ground to rebuild, the walls between the shell-shocked villagers and missionaries began to come down. And by the time they were splashing in the surf, Johansson said, there was something important happening.

"I knew this was a God thing," she said. "They needed to break their fear of water. ... Such an amazing trip: from sadness to joy to sadness to joy."