'From paradise on Earth to paradise in heaven'

Andrew and Belinda Welch died together. Picture / Simon Baker

The Welches face their second Boxing Day family lunch today without their son Andrew and daughter-in-law Belinda.

This time last year they took photos of their annual post-Christmas get-together to send to the couple in Thailand, not knowing they had already been swept to their death by the Boxing Day tsunami.

Andrew, 42, and his wife Belinda, 26, had spent three months backpacking around Europe and were enjoying the beaches of southern Thailand in Khao Lak.

Committed Christians, the couple had gone to to the kingdom because they wanted to do voluntary work with children before returning to New Zealand in March.

They were staying in a beachside bungalow at Bang Nieng when the tsunami hit. The beach was the worst hit in Thailand.

"They said they had found a little piece of paradise on Earth," Andrew's mother, Pauline Welch, said, remembering the last conversation she had with her son on Christmas Eve.

"They went from a little piece of paradise on Earth to paradise in heaven," she said.

It was two months before Belinda's body was found and another month before Andrew's was recovered.

The Welches are grateful that Andrew and Belinda died together.

"They were just devoted to each other. It would have been horrible if one had been left and the other had been taken."

Andrew and Belinda were two of five New Zealanders who died in the tsunami, which killed 216,000 people in 12 nations throughout the Indian Ocean.

Aucklander Craig Baxter died saving his pregnant wife on Khao Phi Phi, former Kapiti Coast woman Leone Cosens died in Phuket and Stephen Bond, a Bangkok businessman formerly of Christchurch, died near Khao Lak.

The Welches are not bitter about losing their loved ones.

"Why should we escape tragedy and other people have tragedy?" Mrs Welch said. "We obviously miss them terribly and it's a terrible miss because we used to see such a lot of them."

The couple believed their lives were under God's guidance and in the weeks before they died they prayed for advice about what they should do next.

"They weren't getting any sort of guidance whatsoever" Mrs Welch said. "In fact, they said it was a bit scary.

"Of course, they couldn't get any because God knew they would have no future here on Earth."

Today the Welches will gather with their extended family at their oldest son Jeremy's home in Huntly.

Andrew and Belinda's bodies were found in time for a double cremation. "We blended the two ashes together so they would be together."

Some of the ashes were scattered at Omaha Beach, where the couple helped set up a holiday house for the underprivileged, and in Christchurch, where Belinda's parents are buried.

The last of the ashes will be buried today under a magnolia tree in their memory. The Welches will be joined by about 20 of the couple's friends.

It has been a difficult year for the family but Mrs Welch said they had been uplifted by God.

"How people cope when they don't have faith, we can't imagine.

"We have felt God's presence with us and he has given us amazing peace.

"It may sound bizarre to some people, but it's very real."

Despite the comfort they get from their religion, Christmas is a sad time for the family.

"It's on our minds more than other times of the year. We've shed many tears over the months. I'm sure there will be more."

- NZPA