I’ve done more reading than writing about the earthquake in Haiti today. Dozens of news articles and blog posts unpacking what is happening on the ground, how many millions of people have been impacted, where donations can be sent and what it will take to care for survivors and repair infrastructure in a country that was barely hanging on before the devastation of the strongest earthquake to hit the region in 200 years.
I suppose I could find an angle or take a position on one thing or another regarding this tragedy as people of faith from the Pope, to Christian charities to Pat Robertson weigh in on where God is or is not in a situation like this. Instead, I find myself paralyzed by a single thought. Despite the news feeds, YouTube videos, Facebook updates and Twitter fundraising campaigns, I cannot imagine what it is like to be Haitian today–in the country or in another part of the world attempting to connect with family and friends. My heart hurts for them and I have a deep desire to do something.
Choices abound – send money, send supplies, pray. And yet, while it is critically important for people, organizations and nations to mobilize in support of the Haitian PEOPLE as a whole, I find myself looking into the shocked and frightened faces of individual Haitian people and wondering: How do we actually help one another at times like this? Is it possible?
Then the more difficult questions come: Will I remember these people a month from now? One year from now?
No conclusions here, just some thoughts and soul searching. What do you think…
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