Wednesday, February 10, 2010

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

The saying goes "A picture is worth a thousand words" and if that is the case, I guess I will just run out of word to describe my 2 weeks in Haiti. Neither words nor picture could ever do justice to describe the hurting, fear, and devastation I have witnessed. I cried as I saw a young boy on the side of the street in a wheelchair holding up his arms asking for food while his mother sat helpless nearby. Or the man who brought his friend by car to our "bus clinic" (with what appeared to be a kidney stone) in the hopes that we could do more than any hospital could.
The grandmother who is now the "mother" of young infant twins after their mother was killed in the earthquake. Tent camps tripling in a days time because they have no where else to go. Or after touring the downtown ruins of Port-au-Prince, dropping my friends off at their tent homes. These are the images I have no words to truly describe and no picture could ever do justice! Yet they are indelibly etched in my mind. Harder yet is the ability to explain the fortitude of the Haitian people. I have never witnessed people with so little be so giving and dare I say joyful in the midst of tragedy as I saw in the last few weeks.
Families taking in strangers because they have no one else, digging with bare hands to find survivors in collapsed buildings, sharing of what meager food one may have...the list could continue, but it just isn't enough to let people know what is truly going on there If you could only catch a glimpse of the 2 church services I attended while there. The passion in their singing, the depth of their prayers and conviction. You don't see people crippled with fear, but rather resolve...they will not be destroyed by this. They will come out stronger - physically, mentally, and most importantly spiritually. God is all they have left! Hope is what pulls them together and allows them to face the next day. None of this could ever be captured in one moment of time as a snapshot!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Haiti Slideshow...

This is just a quick glimpse at the 2 weeks I spent in Haiti with Nehemiah Vision Ministries after the recent earthquake. I can't take credit for all the pics..we had a great group of photographers that shared their photos with us all. Check out www.nehemiahvisionministries.org for more information about the work in Haiti

Sunday, February 7, 2010

In the wake of it all...

So I've been back at my house for about 12 hours now...and I'm so glad to be here, yet its a little hard. Sorry I didn't get a chance to update while I was there - bad internet connection and 40+ people vying for 3 computers doesn't make for much time to reflect and type! I'm still trying to process it all...so I'm sure I will have several posts coming in the next weeks as it finally all comes to make "sense" in my head. I can't thank people enough for the prayers while I was away! We had some very high times and some pretty low times as well...but God is faithful through it all. More to come soon but I will leave you with one of my high points for the 2 wk trip. Friday (which was our last day in Haiti)the team was going to start a little later out to the clinic. The team was sitting around drinking coffee and talking when I heard singing. I looked over the verandah and saw a group of about 8 of our translators in a circle with other smaller groups scattered around them...and they were singing worship songs. For the umpteenth time on this trip I got a lump in my throat. Here are people who have truly lost EVERYTHING...home, jobs, family, friends and they were singing. Its not like one of the guys had been affected and the others were rallying around to give him support...this was 15 people who in 1 minutes time had lost it all! I had to stop and ask myself if I would be strong enough to still praise when in the worlds eyes, all is lost. Thankfully for myself and these fellow brothers in Christ, my hope isn't in things of this world, but rather Christ! I couldn't help myself and ended up sitting on the pavement next to them. I joined in singing the ones I knew in Creole and enjoyed when they humored me and sang in English! These were the moments that kept me going the last 2 weeks...