I hadn’t thought about Haiti in years. Then came the news this morning of the horrific earthquake.
I visited Haiti once. Actually, I wandered there more than anything, and hung out for an indefinite period. I was at an age when I could do that.
I don’t know what I was looking for but I knew no one else went there which was a good reason to go. I wish I could say I was doing humanitarian work or something noble but I wasn’t. I was just wandering.
Instantly when I heard about the disaster my senses went to instant recall. The crowds, the incredible aromas arising from the carts of street vendors, the tap-tap busses, the music.
I also remembered the appalling poverty and the suffering the people bore every day, vast neighborhoods of dilapidated houses packed with human beings. I could only imagine the destruction even a modest heave of the earth would do. But this….
This is a time when everyone must reach out and do whatever can be done, we who have so much. I remember walking past Club Med in Port-au-Prince and feeling embarrassed and ashamed at the barbed wire that ringed its walls. It seemed so wrong to come into someone else’s country and do that. In the end we are all one people, God’s people, and there should be no walls, especially at a time like this.
Pray we surely must. But we must also take action and reach out in any way we can. President Obama has called this disaster “incomprehensible.” Only our compassion can make it less so.
Post a prayer for the victims and their loved ones and find out how you can help with disaster relief through these organizations.
Edward Grinnan is Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of GUIDEPOSTS Publications.
