Still Flooded

As I have searched for pictures and information on the flooding in Haiti I have been learning some important lessons about "temporal" and "eternal". It is hard to find up to the minute info about the state of the country or its people, but i have been piecing together information and my world view is expanding. First, as we watched the new coverage of the devastation in Texas, it was beyond any small inconvenience or suffering i have experienced in my sheltered Montana life. But, as the woman shared how grateful she was for the large box of food and water she had been given after having gone one whole day with out food, i tried to comprehend what it is like in Haiti. There they have not had sufficient food or water for months/years and now no hope of a redcross box; just a new day to start figuring out what is next.

One of the ways I have been trying to learn what it is like in Haiti is to read the blogs of those who are there. This is one of my favorites. If you can have "blog friends" (people you care about and pray for that do not even know you are on this planet with them), these people are some of my closest "friends". They have taught me so much and I admire their courage and pray for them. This is what they had to say a day or s ago about the flooding in their part of Haiti.

*It amazes me as I walked down the river bed to the our old school in Raymond, how strong, resilient, and beautiful the Haitian people are. A stream, that used to be about 10 feet wide a year ago...is now a river that is closer to 80 feet in some areas. I remember driving down the road and there being huge trees, banana trees, corn, plantain trees...everywhere. Raymond area wasn't some desolate tree stripped area...it was a green valley with life. Now it's slowly turning into a huge river bed of rocks. As Danny and I walked, I could remember homes of our students everywhere. They have all been washed away some with bits of foundation left and other not even the ground is there any more. But the thing that amazes me is that people would still come out and greet us with smiles and hope. Most of these people are in two catorgories: 1)Their home was swept down the river and they can't even rebuild because there land is a river bed. 2) Another storm comes, their home can be next.*

Why is this kind of home better in Haiti? Because nothing is permanent. Why do I feel bad for a family raising 6 kids in a house like this in Haiti? Because I only know what I have lived and I like my bed and the "play room" in the basement and... that brings me back to the lesson about the temporal and the eternal. "Oh dear Jesus speak to me!"