Seeking Jesus among the Ruins: In the Trenches in Haiti

February 24, 2010

Continued from Page 1

As a small, grass roots development organization, we have to look at how we can best help and do what we're good at. So part of this is still focusing on education, but starting these buildings means that 100 jobs are created and people can provide for their families. Launching these kid centers is good for kids, but it also employs teachers to do it. So we're trying to find out how we can help immediately, and that's getting money in people's hands but also doing good for the community through education and building these centers.

How would you characterize the response of the American churches to the Haiti disaster?

I don't know the global picture or the statistics, but it's been overwhelming in a good way to see how generous people have been. I know it fades from the news, but we still have many people asking how they can be involved for the long term. They realize that there is an emergency rescue phase, and there are urgent needs right now--but this is a catastrophe that is so huge that it will take years and years to rebuild.

We see many people who want to get involved in the long term. That's our hope, that people will see that Haiti is a place where quick donations are important, but so is sticking with Haiti for the months and years ahead.

When we do see reports from Haiti, we see pictures of extraordinary, horrible devastation. Are there stories of redemption and hope that you have heard or seen around you there in Haiti?

There are close friends and colleagues with amazing stories. My friend Enel's story, for example. We were walking through Port Au Prince, and we went to the university where he was on the third floor of a six-floor university building that collapsed. Going with him there, and walking around the rubble, we knew that a couple hundred students, even students he had been studying next to, had died when the building collapsed. The smell of death is still in the air, because they have not been able to recover all of the bodies underneath the rubble.

It's amazing to see people like my friend and colleague Enel make it through that and continue working. He helped set up one of these learning centers for the kids. He's already done training for a micro-credit program that we will be offering in many churches. So to see a person like him, who barely escaped with his life, who literally watched his classmates die right in front of him--and he too was badly injured--to see him getting to work to help his fellow countrymen is pretty astonishing.

It's humbling to see the patience of people waiting for aid, the work people are doing to recover, and then people like Enel, who is already moving on to helping other people.

What is your impression of the spiritual condition of the Haitians right now? There were stories of people gathering in the city squares to sing hymns in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. What's your impression of the general spiritual sense there now?

I'm always reluctant to claim to know an overall sense, and I wasn't in the country when the earthquake happened. But from the people I've spoken to, what was astonishing at first was the sheer gratitude to be alive. They had just survived this unbelievable devastation. Then, when I went to Haiti last week, the gratitude remains, but they're also seeing how hard the road ahead is, and what it will take for them to continue to survive and rebuild.

At the same time, Enel, who is a pastor as well, says that his church has never been more full. We see praise and prayer. A week and a half ago, I went to a worship service with hundreds of people outside the church I used to attend. Though it was beside a collapsed church, a pile of rubble, they were singing and praying and sharing communion. So, as I see it, the faith is still very strong there. It's deeply humbling to see people's faith staying strong through that.

I would have expected more questions and protests. There is some of that, but amongst the people I interact with, I don't see as much of the questioning or crying out that I would expect to see here in the United States.

What is the spiritual condition of other ministers like you? It must be difficult to bear up under it all.

I can't say I've spoken with many of the other missionaries and development workers, but it does seem that part of my experience and the experience of other people I've spoken to, is this: There's a grief that is overwhelming. And so many conversations are so heavy, because so many people have lost family and friends. But for those of us who are able, we just put our heads down and work as hard as we can.

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