September 25, 2004

We thank you for your continuing prayers and notes of concern for us and the communities where we work. First and foremost, our area was not affected by tropical storm Jeanne, which caused so much loss of life last weekend. As the storm was inundating Gonaives, it spawned fierce thunderstorms that did come our way. Strong gusts of wind, violent lightning and thunder close enough to rattle the bed accompanied six inches of rain. By morning it was gone from our area.

Gonaives is located about 100 miles north of us. This is the area where the majority of the flooding and destruction occurred. We have spoken to a number of trusted friends who have been to the area and their reports authenticate what you are reading in the U.S. press—water, mud, sewage, bloated bodies, disbelief, shock—it’s all there.

Earlier this evening I was reading some material that had been highlighted using a magic marker. I’m sure most of you pre-computer age people can remember highlighting. You read an article. To make it more memorable, you would highlight part of it. The story was the same but suddenly it seemed to have more intensity and clarity.

I do not want to minimize the reality of several thousand lives lost and a major city destroyed overnight. But as you read those devastating news stories please realize you are reading a highlighted report. Every day in Haiti people are dealing with fears about their personal security. Roads everywhere border on impassable with or without hurricanes. There are less than minimal medical facilities available and even less medical care. Everyday people in most of the cities wade thru or jump over sewage covering their streets or yards. There is never enough potable water. Skin diseases abound from filth and polluted water. Tens of thousands are homeless and many, many more live in shacks that do little to keep out rain. The dead can’t be buried without great expense to the living.

This latest tropical storm has highlighted a situation that normally is not noticed. Eight million people live here and the vast majority live in squalor and insecurity and hopelessness and loss each and every day. They, like the survivors in Gonaives, have no shelters to flee to. The millions of dollars in aid will not get their houses and communities close to minimal levels for existence or even a pre-flood level.

We Christians have a responsibility to look to the future. Repairing things to the level they were is not enough. Even as we work to fix the crisis of today, we must be about long-term change. After 500 years of Christianity in Haiti there are more unchurched than churched. Church buildings multiply, but believers are few. Short-term mission teams fill the planes but long-term workers are rare. Hand-outs abound but long-term involvement and commitment scare church boards.

The highlighted horror must remain before us. Prayers for the lives devastated in Gonaives must remind us of the need for daily prayers for all the people on the “normal” days. And the prayers cannot only be to “help them” but more importantly to reveal what God wants to do to “help us” become more caring, more compassionate, more aware of our calling and spiritual gifts.

Friends, supporters and family from Pennsylvania to Florida have been greatly impacted this season by unusual weather. Please know that we and the Haitian churches are praying for you. As you deal with the mud and water, loss and shock, know you are being prayed for. I was in the mountains a couple days ago. I was explaining some of the impact of the hurricanes in the States to a group of mountain folks we work with. These are people who never have electricity or running water or sewage treatment. They have no cars or boats or shops and basements full of tools and toys. They’ve never been to an airport or a restaurant. But they understand floods and mud and cleanup and more rain. Their reply was they must begin praying more for you that you “would not grow weary of doing good and lose heart.” They prayed you would find a place to “push” the mud from your homes and find enough clean water to wash your mattresses so they could begin to dry.

A hurricane highlighted your needs to them and revealed the universal need for all of our prayers.

Yesterday, for the first time in three weeks, the local cell phone antenna began working. Our very first call was to Mimi, our driver. He was at the airport in Port-au-Prince to pick up someone from a group coming to build a house in the Cormier mountains. Long before the present crisis you have already been installing structures to reduce flooding, planting millions of trees, constructing cisterns, building houses. And all that is but an adumbration for the education, leadership development, evangelism, direct Bible teaching, and the prayer groups. Thank you.

To clasp our hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of this world.
Karl Barth

Rodney and Sharyn

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 136