Help for Haiti

I fig­ured it high time to dust off the old blog and engage the world again.  Iron­i­cally I find no bet­ter time than to offer some thoughts and reflect on this weeks events.

The dis­as­ter in Haiti is per­sonal for me because I have been there and have had a chance to be impacted by their peo­ple.  Their faith, their gen­eros­ity, their hos­pi­tal­ity despite their worldly poverty showed me how rich they truly are.  What was crushed in a few short moments was largely built by hand over weeks, months, and years.  Each cement col­umn and floor was hand stirred and poured by pass­ing buck­ets of cement.  Many patiently waited for a long time to receive the hos­pi­tals and schools that would pro­vide a higher qual­ity of life and an oppor­tu­nity to impact their neigh­bor­hood for Gods King­dom.  It breaks my heart to know what was so painstak­ingly built now lays crushed around them.  I am glad to see the world rally to help them.  I am greatly encour­aged to see the response of the Church in this time of cri­sis to bring aid as well.  In many ways lead­ing the charge as they have been there so long work­ing with the peo­ple of Haiti.  My prayer for them as a nation is that despite their sig­nif­i­cant suf­fer­ing, and untold hor­ror this moment will be a turn­ing point for them.  A time in which we come together and help them rebuild.  And in rebuild­ing we are able to give them far more than we have ever given before.  I pray they will be over­whelmed by the gen­eros­ity of the world and espe­cially Amer­ica and more impor­tantly the Church.  I pray that in rebuild­ing we can offer them things that will work to get rid of hunger, poverty, and dis­ease that plagued them because they often could not get or pro­vide for these needs.  I pray the images we see on TV would haunt us, dis­turb our souls and move us to action.  Because as dear as Haiti is to me, this is just one of many heart­break­ing real­i­ties around the world wait­ing on the rest of the world to look in and see and move to action.

The Church is alive and well down in Haiti and God has been doing unbe­liev­able things.  They have a strong faith, and stead­fast hope in the Lord.  I was encour­aged today as I was scan­ning the news to hear that they were gath­er­ing in town squares, fields, and open spaces to pray, com­fort one another, and wor­ship together.  In their grief they con­tinue to seek God, despite the sig­nif­i­cant dis­as­ter they face.

If you are part of the Marsh Creek Church fam­ily we will take a spe­cial offer­ing this week to aid in the recov­ery.  We have also been col­lect­ing shoes and have found out those shoes will go to the peo­ple of Haiti.  I can tell you that this need alone is sig­nif­i­cant and will go along way in the rebuild­ing effort.  Many do not have shoes and are sig­nif­i­cantly hin­dered by hav­ing to go bare­foot on unpaved roads that are lit­tered with streams of raw sewage and trash.  This was before the dis­as­ter.  Now they must con­tend with impass­able roads and col­lapsed build­ings.  Shoes for their feet will impact them a great deal.  So please plan to come pre­pared.  For those who may read this from other Church com­mu­ni­ties take the lead as God moves on your heart to respond.

And let us allow this to be one more moment that moves us closer to the heart of Christ as we hum­ble our­selves to serve our broth­ers and sis­ters in need.