Approaching Anniversary

As January 12th approaches, I am noticing many reminders of last year.  A week ago I was heading to Port-au-Prince and passed by a place on the side of the road where they sell furniture.  I've been by there many times over the past year, but for some reason this time it was a deja vous moment.  Maike, Will, Stuart and a group from Sturbridge Worship Center were arriving that day.  The same date they'd arrived the previous year.  I recalled that I bought furniture to put under the "choukoun" (a grass roofed, round pavilion that is central to our missionary compound) that same day last year.  While Maike, Will and Stuart were here, the earthquake struck.

For me, December 31st brought with it the beginning of the one year anniversary of the most terrifying moment in my life.  This past week, we survivors have been reliving those days through little memories that we share...sometimes laughing and sometimes shaking our heads in disbelief.  We talk about the difficulties we've had since.  I'd never realized how much airports shake until after the earthquake.  Yesterday a loud truck was approaching the office and I was ready to run out the door.  Tears welled up in my eyes as I realized that my mind and body are still conditioned to run for tremors.  I must admit, it was comforting to talk with Maike and hear her talking about similar moments in her own life.  I wonder if that day is now a permanent part of who I am.  It can be far removed from my mind for weeks and return in full and living color by a simple sound or vibration.

This morning Alexis was telling Len about the interview we found online a few weeks ago on Fox News.  I was being interviewed a few days after the quake.  In the middle of the interview I disappeared.  Alexis falls over laughing about it.  I had such a reputation among the people in the office for running for EVERY tremor.

You have to understand, I was on my computer in the yard the day after the quake and everyone that passed by wanted to either talk or use the computer.  I was getting about 300 emails a day and trying to figure out which end was up.  So, 2 days after the quake I returned to my office.  At that time we were still experiencing at least 10 tremors per hour and I was very aware that buildings were still falling down all over the place.  When a tremor begins, it sounds like a distant thunder that grows louder and louder and then it hits.  You never know if it will be sustained or if it will be just a little one.  Consequently, as soon as I heard the noise, I would always run out the door - FAST!!!

Pastor Kevin Groder made several trips to be with us after the earthquake.  I wonder if we would have survived without him.  Our desks were set up in such a way that there was just one small space to pass through between the desks.  He often would sit in a manner that blocked part of that space.  A tremor hit and I was plowing into/through him.  Now, for those of you who don't know Pastor Kevin, he is six something and "Buff" (as Paula puts it) - he's very muscular.  I realized after that I could have hurt him or myself, but worse than that, he kept me from being able to get out of the building.  I rearranged my office that night and put his desk on the other side of the room, leaving a wide path to reach the door of escape.

Yesterday we had a meeting with some folks on the second floor of the guest house.  Maike let me know that she'd determined her route of escape on her way up the stairs.  She would either jump onto the metal roof of the bath house or onto a nearby palm tree.  After the meeting she looked at the roof and said, "Hmmm.  It's a little farther than I thought." I think that everyone who survived the earthquake plans their route of escape when entering a building for the first time.

The media will be talking a lot about Haiti next week.  This country is in a big mess right now.  I pray that God would reveal the solutions to the problems to people that have influence in this country and who will help us to move into a new era.  A time of redeveloping a country with a plan...to build an infrastructure to support the almost 10 million people living here...to provide a way out of the desolation so many have been trapped in...that God would open the eyes of our understanding.  Sometimes people trust in their own abilities so much that simple things elude us.  One little insight from heaven can change this whole nation.  If I depend on my own reasoning, I would ask "Where is the hope?"  The hope is not in mankind alone, but in God working through mankind.  "Lord, here am I.  Send me."

As I think about my life and ask "Why am I here?"  I am reminded of a passage from Mark 8.  I encourage you to look at your life through different eyes today.  "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.  For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?  Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?  Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."  That's from the Bible in Mark 8:35-38.  I can't save my own life and neither can you.  I do believe though, that when I "lose" my life, it is then that I find it.