the sound of silence.
for a minute, i sat in silence. i spoke not a word, i heard not a sound. i reflected on that same minute, just a year earlier.
4:53.
my sixty-seconds of silence was void of the shrieks and screams and shouts for a Savior. the air was clear of dust and debris and a devastating stench of death. my minute was unfilled with the sounds of tearing concrete and bending re-barb. in my silence was safety, comfort.
part of me feels guilty about not being in haiti on that day that the earth opened up and swallowed the lives of 230,000 haitians, injuring hundreds of thousands, displacing a population larger than the entire Nashville metro area (1.3+ million), and no doubt leaving each of the remaining 10 million citizens in fear and pain, grief-stricken and desperate. part of me wonders why not here? why not me?
i'll be honest. i don't watch the news. i was nannying for a family that didn't even have a t.v. in their home when the earthquake hit. i vaguely remember hearing about it; and it took a week before the gravity of what occurred really sank in. by then, the (and i say this quite insensitively, i know. forgive me.) "novelty" of it wore off. the stories of survival become fewer and more rare, yet also more miraculous. but unfortunately, my lack of knowledge and proximity didn't leave me feeling very connected to their tragedy.
that was, until february 6th. finding myself at a place of stillness in the wilderness, i felt God speak to my heart. Haiti. go. teach. they need you. "wow" i thought to myself. could i really?
long story short, i did. i researched, got applications in, sent out support letters, raised the finances, bought a one-way ticket, and left; all within three weeks time. because of the devastations, my flight was cancelled, and re-scheduled for a week later, so i was on the ground in just about a month.
i could never convey to you what i saw. to be honest, i'm not certain it looked any better before the earthquake either. i could sit here and tell you about the horrific living conditions and the pain that entrenched their communities all day long, but it would never mean a thing to you. how do i know? because it didn't mean a thing to me, either. not until i saw it. not until i lived it. not until i experienced the heavy-heartedness of a culture bearing a burden of severe loss. conversely, never have i experienced such a rich, ripe, authentic joy in the Lord from a community that had nothing tangible to lay claim to.
to this day, i have a jaded view of the earthquake. i will never know the searing pain of losing a family member, a school-mate, a neighbor, a body part-- all at once. and i feel guilty for that. i will never know the pain their hearts must visit daily. the nightmares the children must have or the terror that jolts them out of bed when a helicopter rumbles above, sparking memories of the sounds the of the earthquaking. i will never know that type of fear, and part of me knows i can never fully understand their heartbreak, which only further cements my efforts to try. maybe it also allows me to naively believe i can fix it. but even maybe is worth a shot.
to me, i will always selfishly view the earthquake as a springboard to new life. as i concluded a short season in the wilderness, i began a walk through a new wilderness. i learned the purity of joy in Christ. i learned to love Him and rely on Him and trust Him and leave myself at His mercy, continually and consistently. He breathed new life into my walk with Him. i quickly found that even as close as i had gotten to Him over the years, that i needed to draw closer still. i experienced the outpouring of His love and glory in ways i couldn't describe; nor would you believe me if i could find the words to match them.
once i admit my selfishness over haiti, i can move beyond myself and acknowledge the power of the presence of the Lord in that nation. void of everything else: laptops iphones and internet at our fingertips, electric and a/c and ice cubes, reliable transportation and reliable roads and safety among both; i witnessed this nation call out for Jesus. you see, they get it. they know they need the Lord. they know it was at His mercy that they survived. seeing pictures of the crusades and solemn processionals that took place at mass grave sites today, we know that they get it. there hope can not be in anything but the Lord; they've been stripped of it all. they remember that day in a way, Lord willing, that we never will be able to.
the work is not complete. the nation is still deep-seeded in voodoo. violence and rape and theft and corruption still run the country. but when the earth shook, God got their attention ....
... and He got ours. Haiti needed to be noticed. even before the devastation, knowing that the unemployment rate is 80% (not because they are lazy, but there is no work. there is no money to be paid for the work. there is no money to buy the goods to create work.); knowing that roughly half of the elementary-age children attend school, and of those, only about 60% will complete it; knowing that just half the population is literate; these are all things that greatly need to be addressed.
with roughly 1.3 million internally displaced (left homeless) after the earthquake, and living in temporary tent shacks, with thousands dying from a treatable and fully preventable waterborne disease, with many children orphaned or left as a restavek (sold by their parents; not always out of creulty, but as a hope for a better life of provision), our eyes have been turned to a nation that needs the help of those able to give. they need jesus. and this is opportunity has been created for us to be jesus to the nations.
God is glorified when we obey. when we serve. when we give what we can. when we walk in trust of His faithfulness, not in fear of the unforeseen. He is glorified when we chose to walk outside of our comfort zones and embrace the unfamiliar: a culture, a skin-color, a life of poverty; a prayer, a commitment, a financial support, a career change.
What matters most is that on both sides of the fault line, that God receives the glory.
because as that minute hand moved from 4:52, that fault line became reality, and what matters is not how the ground shifted, but how our hearts were moved and if our eyes locked with His.
