religion that god our father accepts as pure and faultless is this.
'religion that god our father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress...' james 1:27
haiti really isn't that far from florida... but it is a whole other world. a world i wish i knew more of. the less than 2 weeks i spent there the summer after high school altered my view of the world, but really, the biggest difference it made in my life was giving me a 10 day panorama of what the pictures you see on tv and in magazines really are, and then it gave me some really cool stories to tell and some sweet pictures to frame.
today i was watching CNN doing live updates in haiti. one reporter was at the hospital. there was 1 doctor there. there were no bandages, gauze, or pain meds. there was nothing that would do any good. 1 doctor, for so many people.
there was another reporter at a house that had collapsed. he was standing there, helplessly, reporting second for second about what was going on. but he couldn't do anything other than tell CNN watchers what he was seeing. there was a little girl, 11, alive, but smashed under the roof that had collapsed. she was crying for her father. selfless haitian men, who would receive no tangible reward for helping her, had been there all day. trying to comfort her, trying to get her out, but there was nothing they could do. she might still be stuck there now. she might have died in the last 2 hours. and there are so so many people in her same situation. right. now. and nobody can do anything about it.
haiti has one airstrip. one.
no matter how much people there care, there isn't a whole lot they can do. people are suffering. people are dying. that's the truth. (and that 700 club guy had felt that he was right to say that the reason this happened was because of all the voodoo practiced in haiti? did he really think that statement was okay? that's embarrassing... saying things like that doesn't help anybody.)
people are dying in haiti. at this very moment. mothers don't know where their babies are. 11 year olds are stuck under collapsed buildings. we can watch it live to tv all day long. and nothing i do is going to help that little girl.
so i straightened my hair, brushed by teeth, got changed, grabbed my starbucks doubleshot, and came to work... while that little girl is trapped under the collapsed house. crying for her daddy... lord knows where he is.
... 'religion that god our father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress...' james 1:27
maybe we should take that a little more seriously.
and realize that suffering - real suffering - is for real.
follow up on what's going on. mark stuart and his parents and partners are giving updates from jacmel. http://www.handsandfeetproject.org/home.php
a place i fell in love with, but a place i can't say i really know.
(the babies, children, and workers at the H&FP, sleeping outside for safety)
mark is quoted in this article too: more about what's going on.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/13/haiti.jacmel/index.html
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