Hope for Haiti...

The earthquake in Haiti happened this past Tuesday and since then I have just been mesmerized by the pictures and stories that are coming out of that wreckage. The pictures of a city flattened, thousands missing, bodies in the street. The first amazing story I read was of the lady found in what was left of a grocery store. She spent 50 hours in the dark buried up to her neck in rubble. I imagine if that were me and wonder what I would be thinking during those 50 hours. I know I would be having some seriously long conversations with God. What else are you gonna do? And what about those promises that I'm sure she made to God, while begging for her life. "God if you save me from this, I will......." We've all done that, right? No food, no water, no light, not knowing if you would ever see the sun again, or your family and if that was the way you were going to die. The things that must go through your mind in that type of extreme crisis situation. Then I wonder, how will her life will be different after her rescue? Will she ever be able to go inside another building or ever be able to go grocery shopping or buy that particular item she was reaching for when the shaking started? Will she even stay in Haiti? Does she even have the means to leave if she wanted......

My church does lots of mission work in Haiti and had purchased a few buildings there to turn one into a hospital and one into a school. The hospital was going to reside in an old abandoned Catholic Church that is now a pile of rubble and the school? Don't know....but as our pastor said Saturday Night, it doesn't matter. Buildings can be rebuilt and replaced, lives cannot. So the mission work through our church has just become ten times as important and basically starts over.

I know I spent a lot of time this week thanking God for my safety and the safety of my family. I wish and pray for lots more rescues and fewer recoveries and that we all remember just how blessed we truly are.