Here is a photo of the universe, taken from the Hubble.

Somewhere beyond that vastness is a speck of a star called the Sun.

By the Sun is a speck called Earth.

A speck on the planet Earth is called Haiti.

In Haiti, it is Hell.

Here I sit, after spending my Saturday evening in a ballroom surrounded by people who were deeply into the wine and the filet mignon, celebrating the citizens of the year for our beautiful little community. Not one word was mentioned about Haiti. Not. One. Word. It was all I could think about between bites of filet mignon. I don't drink, so I didn't share the imbibing. Why couldn't we pass the hat for Haiti? I wondered. Just the price of one glass of wine, for the humanity suffering in Haiti. Oh, it gave me chills.


Just wanted to connect with you all out there and say human being to human being, I feel the same as you do. Helpless. Sent the money I would have spent to a nice dinner out. What good does that drop in the hat do? So prayer, yes.



Here is a link to Tara and Troy, who are doing ministry work in Haiti and are caught in the catastrophe. I found it via Hope at "A Song Not Scored for Breathing" (she's on my blog roll). Tara is blogging from the streets of Port-au-Prince.





My hubby and I lived through the '94 earthquake in our city of Northridge, when a portion of Los Angeles buckled and went dark. We know what the upheaval of the Earth is like and what the aftermath is like. It is very long. What's happening in Haiti is immeasurably worse.
God, the Creator of the Universe, bless us all.
________________________

This morning 16 years ago, we stood in our ruined home in the earthquake's epicenter, trying to make a path through the shattered living room and kitchen to get to the back door. We had huddled through the darkness for the light to see by. By daylight we waded through the wreckage and got in the truck to go find our little girl who had spent the night across town. Ah, God, the rubble in the streets. Whole walls sheared off tall buildings. Buildings pancaked on top of people and cars. Everything concrete and brick lay broken where it fell. We found our daughter safe and weaved our way back through the streets to the house. It was only the beginning of a long nightmare.

Six years ago, I clinged to a chain-link fence in an alley of my small hometown, as the earth shook again. The heaving of the ground is indescribable. I clinged to the shaking fence and watched the building in front of me collapse on my friends. Made of brick and mortar, two stories tall, it simply crumpled in slow motion and crushed those people.

Please don't stop following what's happening in Haiti. It has only begun.

Photo credit: a fugii spacetelescope.org