"the tiny bodies of children lay in piles next to the ruins of their collapsed school. people with faces covered by white dust and the blood of open wounds roamed the streets. frantic doctors wrapped heads and stitched up sliced limbs in a hotel parking lot.
the poorest country in the western hemisphere, still struggling to recover from the relentless strikes of four catastrophic storms in 2008, was a picture of heartbreaking devastation wednesday after a magnitude-7 earthquake."- the new york times
as everyone should know by now, haiti endured a devastating earthquake this week. when i first heard about this, it did not really phase me... "oh another bad thing happened to a country that can't afford a bad thing to happen to it"... i hate that this is my attitude (sometimes).
i started really thinking about this last night while i was talking to some friends... this is a terrible thing that has happened. as many as 100,000 people have died and 1/3 of the country was affected. what makes matters worse is the poverty of the country- nearly 80% of the country live in poverty. as one writer put it, " in this kind of natural disaster, it is always the poorest who suffer the most."
i don't know about you, but when i think about these things i feel overwhelmed. i start thinking about the many social problems in the world- the problem of poverty in particular since i believe it is the source of other problems. i don't have answers , but that the world is evil... and that's not very comforting.
i thank god he is sovereign. he is in control. there is comfort in believing, in knowing that he is in control.
"lord, our hearts cry out for the people of Haiti: for the millions affected, for lost loved ones, lost homes, and lost livelihoods. Lord, have mercy. Draw us together as your people to help in whatever ways we can, and we ask your grace on the emergency rescue and aid workers. Lord, have mercy. Bring relief, bring restoration, bring rescue. In Jesus' name, amen"-sojourner's prayer of the day
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