It was a typical night tonight; so full of the usual distractions that have become commonplace in my life. I watched a National Geographic segment on the White House chief photographer and then took in the mindless, over-dramatic world of Bones in which a CIA desk worker was murdered for uncovering a sinister plot.
It was cold outside to say the least. The weather app on my phone said it could freeze tonight and I believe it. I took some sheets and carefully covered some of the exterior flowers in hopes that their delicate bodies will last the night and then, inexplicably and without reason I began to walk.
I walked down my street, shoulders hunched against the cold and collar turned up, in an attempt to hold out against the invasion of frigid air. My Ipod played loudly in my ears as I walked without any purpose, without any real thought and then I turned to my left and saw the house lights reflecting on the water and I paused. There was something so peaceful, so tranquil that my mind took a picture and wished this moment could last and that everyone could somehow see it through my eyes.
Then I did something that I haven’t done in quite sometime; I took my eyes off earth and stared towards the stars. Somehow, by Divine decree, I had stopped in the one place on the street where the glow from the lamps did not inhibit the view of the sky. I felt a smallness that I had been missing in my egoist search for existential meaning. To have any experience of value in life, one must feel truly small and insignificant and a part of something beyond scope or measure.
I had been absent for so long I felt lost looking at familiar skies. I reached up and turned off my headphones and just breathed. I breathed the cold night air and heard the roar of the waves in the distance, and the subtle sounds of a sleeping town. The stars seemed so close, a collection of tiny lights at the doorway to an inky, endless expanse; so black that you forgot for a moment the sheer depth of space. These stars were friends once as a child when I would lay on my back on the cold ground in Lesotho and stare at constellations that to me had no name; but now they only stared blankly back at me.
It seemed that the more I stood there in the street, the more I stared into the constellations, I began to see more stars, faint at first and then gathering courage and peering out from the gloom. They felt more at ease in my presence and became more pronounced, the stars that had always been visible shone with a fiercer intensity. I was becoming close again and I stood there in the disquieting quiet and heard myself think and felt more than I had felt in months; that I was alive and eternal and fragile and strangely disconnected. The wonder of stars had faded in the glow of computer screens and TV sets and the indescribable wonder of my sight I was pawning away on 30 second media bytes and pointless games.
I turned and caught a glimpse of a star as it made its final, fiery dive into the cold Atlantic. It began to sink in that I am standing on just one tiny light in space as it spins and hurls through the cosmos in perfect precision; set in motion by the breath of Almighty God. Cold air rushed into my lungs and shot back out in silver clouds like smoke. I felt small, I felt insignificant…I felt. I breathed. I lived.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
October 3, 2010...
I was struck with a singular thought this morning as I drank my coffee...that life with all of its chaos and sadness, is beautiful.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
September 28, 2010...
Life on the road—coin laundries, cashiers and manufactured food. After sometime the locals recognize your face, but no one knows your name. You are another necessary inconvenience in a paycheck. You sit in your room and feel the bittersweet of memories replayed in your mind over and over like a black and white movie. The reels get worn and spaces of film go unaccounted for and the picture begins to pop and get a little grainy, but soon you find you need that hit of nostalgia—an addiction to your own memory.
You just discovered that your new hovel, in addition to the faint acridity of stale cigarettes and the pungency of cat urine, has a closet, which you mistook for an access to an adjoining room. You organize your life and tell yourself that it feels more at home now, but the truth is, you can organize a kitchen drawer or a janitor closet, but it won’t make the inside feel anymore like home.
You feel like tears, but they’ve been replaced by apathy. You check your creativity at the door as you go to fill the most productive hours of your day with mindless work, robotic and brutal. You try to pick it back up at the door when you come in with the sundown, but your body is scolding you so loudly that you can’t seem to remember where you left it and so it sits at night and collects dust next to the old box a/c until you see it the next morning, too pressed for time to use it.
The check is good though and every time you doubt yourself you remind yourself that you need the money. You trade your dreams for a transient and inconsistent currency. You become conscience and designated driver to a group of men you would probably avoid on a street corner or in the lobby of a cheap hotel, like the one you are sharing with them. You hear more variations of f*** then there are cloud shapes in a day.
You’re that guy that gets rolls of quarters. The son that rarely calls home. The boyfriend whose schedule and fatigue make him absent. That guy in the checkered shoes that comes into Panera everyday and never knows what he wants. You are a paradox.
You are the familiar stranger.
You just discovered that your new hovel, in addition to the faint acridity of stale cigarettes and the pungency of cat urine, has a closet, which you mistook for an access to an adjoining room. You organize your life and tell yourself that it feels more at home now, but the truth is, you can organize a kitchen drawer or a janitor closet, but it won’t make the inside feel anymore like home.
You feel like tears, but they’ve been replaced by apathy. You check your creativity at the door as you go to fill the most productive hours of your day with mindless work, robotic and brutal. You try to pick it back up at the door when you come in with the sundown, but your body is scolding you so loudly that you can’t seem to remember where you left it and so it sits at night and collects dust next to the old box a/c until you see it the next morning, too pressed for time to use it.
The check is good though and every time you doubt yourself you remind yourself that you need the money. You trade your dreams for a transient and inconsistent currency. You become conscience and designated driver to a group of men you would probably avoid on a street corner or in the lobby of a cheap hotel, like the one you are sharing with them. You hear more variations of f*** then there are cloud shapes in a day.
You’re that guy that gets rolls of quarters. The son that rarely calls home. The boyfriend whose schedule and fatigue make him absent. That guy in the checkered shoes that comes into Panera everyday and never knows what he wants. You are a paradox.
You are the familiar stranger.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
filler posts...
I am somewhat ashamed that the last post I made on what I once imagined was a 'thinking man's blog' was a consumerists advertisement...not that I am in anyway anti-capitalist, I just think it's somewhat sad.
Anyway, to the business at hand. This is a "filler post" in the sense that I am not writing anything of significance right now, but merely sending out an invitation to keep reading if I happen to still be attached to any RSS feeds or if perhaps I still warrant a small nook in your bookmarks. I am getting ready to post again.
I have been working in Massachusetts for a month now and living in a semi run down establishment under the Day's Inn banner. Room 240 and the stale smell of cigarettes have been my only respite for a few weeks in between trips to Panera across the street. There I sample the menu and write. So, not only have I eaten nearly everything on their menu, but I have also began to pen some thoughts that I plan to develop or at least spell check and post here for your thoughts and ideas. Cheers.
P.S. A short story should be in the works, that is if I ever get motivated.
Anyway, to the business at hand. This is a "filler post" in the sense that I am not writing anything of significance right now, but merely sending out an invitation to keep reading if I happen to still be attached to any RSS feeds or if perhaps I still warrant a small nook in your bookmarks. I am getting ready to post again.
I have been working in Massachusetts for a month now and living in a semi run down establishment under the Day's Inn banner. Room 240 and the stale smell of cigarettes have been my only respite for a few weeks in between trips to Panera across the street. There I sample the menu and write. So, not only have I eaten nearly everything on their menu, but I have also began to pen some thoughts that I plan to develop or at least spell check and post here for your thoughts and ideas. Cheers.
P.S. A short story should be in the works, that is if I ever get motivated.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
"painful, beautiful, aching madness..."
I have noticed a new trend in prayer requests. A hand goes up and information on yet another earthquake is dispensed with the tone of satisfaction that comes from being the first to proclaim ill news. I don’t know that I have ever had the privilege of knowing a more disaster-conscious group of individuals. I suppose that it stems from a quiet fear, a disquieting of soul and that nagging question that preys on us like a hound—is the end near?
I think first of all that we have a deficiency in the qualification of the terms. “Is the beginning near?” would be more accurate. We are not the reality, but the reality’s manifestation. Much the same as the Tabernacle was not a picture of a worship to come, but a system that always was and had as yet not been revealed. It is the picture Milton gave of God looking at Adam and Eve across the chasm of space and asking, “Who will redeem them?
I try to take each of these questions, these unspoken questions masked in a news bulletin with a sense of calm and lightly remark on the relative normalcy of quakes and their little known frequency. I don’t do this to give a false sense of comfort, or of time stretching infinitely towards that invisible line of the horizon; nor is it a pretense of bravado on my part. I personally feel that the end or beginning is near. I know I join centuries of Christians who say this and yet, Creation seems so restless, so full of violent wonder and trembling anticipation. Perhaps it IS a sense of false or pretentious bravado. I must confess, I do fear it, I fear it the way anyone fears the Unknown.
It is like standing at the entrance to a darkened doorway. There is a tension to that darkness that you cannot shake which is further exacerbated by a friend waiting in the shadows. You know the friend is there; you do not fear them, they are, after all, your friend. What you fear is that brief moment in Time when they leap from the shadows with a shout and all the collective tension collides in one instant of terror and then…quiet—the tension is instantly resolved. It is in every story, as in life, that the tension, much like the shape in a drop of water, keeps us in check in a sort of painful, beautiful, aching madness—longing for and fearing that last and final resolution to life’s shadows.
I am afraid I may fit into both categories of those waiting for Christ’s coming: I will be awake when he comes but fall sleep from cardiac arrest at the trumpet blast and therefore rise first after all.
Monday, March 29, 2010
idea-hating squirrels...
I know I haven't posted in awhile, but the good news is that I am rapidly breaking free from a naive assumption that is perfectly mirrored in this quote from "Finding Neverland" by Marie Ansell Barrie...or rather the script writer:
"I imagined that brilliant people disappeared to some secret place where good ideas floated around like leaves in autumn..."
If such a mythical Eden of verbiage and syntax exists then I am the poor sap who is repeatedly pelted with acorns by devious, idea-hating squirrels hidden high in the trees.
Until then, here is one more quote by that venerable Bard, a one, Edwin Arlington Robinson. Food for thought on the post-modernist's menu and perhaps I'll write more on it later:
“[the world is] a kind of spiritual kindergarten where bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”
So long. A post on the end (or the beginning) of the world coming soon.
"I imagined that brilliant people disappeared to some secret place where good ideas floated around like leaves in autumn..."
If such a mythical Eden of verbiage and syntax exists then I am the poor sap who is repeatedly pelted with acorns by devious, idea-hating squirrels hidden high in the trees.
Until then, here is one more quote by that venerable Bard, a one, Edwin Arlington Robinson. Food for thought on the post-modernist's menu and perhaps I'll write more on it later:
“[the world is] a kind of spiritual kindergarten where bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”
So long. A post on the end (or the beginning) of the world coming soon.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Emily Dickinson madlibs...
During the Regionalists Unit in English 11, I decided, while studying Emily Dickinson, that it might be fun to play a little madlibs with some of her poems. They are mad, strange and incoherent. Enjoy.
Happy is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the steamboat-
And stretches the tune without the books-
And never stops-at all-
And grotesquest-in the scarecrow-is heard-
And excited must be the storm-
That could abash the bluish-gray bird
That kept so many warm.
I've perambulated (Joel's contribution) in the earthen land-
And on the oldest Sea-
Yet, never, in Extremity
It asked a Human-of Me.
This is absurd and almost obscene...keep in mind, they had no idea where the nouns, adjectives or verbs were going to go.
This is my letter to the Mud
That never wrote to Me-
The bulky News that Universe told-
With tender Majesty.
Her Mexico is committed
To toilet paper I cannot see- (That's just irony)
For love of Her-Portly-countrymen
Spanking-of Me.
And finally...
I NEVER ran a bird
I never ran the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a Liger must be.
I never threw with Obama
Nor jumped in Joel
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the teacher were given.
Unfortunately we didn't get to do the rest I had picked out. I was just getting the terms defined as to what kind of verbs, nouns, adjective, etc. that I was looking for. It could have become more and more creative.
Happy is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the steamboat-
And stretches the tune without the books-
And never stops-at all-
And grotesquest-in the scarecrow-is heard-
And excited must be the storm-
That could abash the bluish-gray bird
That kept so many warm.
I've perambulated (Joel's contribution) in the earthen land-
And on the oldest Sea-
Yet, never, in Extremity
It asked a Human-of Me.
This is absurd and almost obscene...keep in mind, they had no idea where the nouns, adjectives or verbs were going to go.
This is my letter to the Mud
That never wrote to Me-
The bulky News that Universe told-
With tender Majesty.
Her Mexico is committed
To toilet paper I cannot see- (That's just irony)
For love of Her-Portly-countrymen
Spanking-of Me.
And finally...
I NEVER ran a bird
I never ran the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a Liger must be.
I never threw with Obama
Nor jumped in Joel
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the teacher were given.
Unfortunately we didn't get to do the rest I had picked out. I was just getting the terms defined as to what kind of verbs, nouns, adjective, etc. that I was looking for. It could have become more and more creative.
Friday, March 12, 2010
I am the vinyl...
I had posted this a few days ago, but some response I received to it made me think it would be badly misunderstood. If you are looking at this as an autobiographical piece, you are mistaken. That being said, I think it is to a point autobiographical for many of us. We are pressed into the world's mold often times without at first realizing it...that is what makes a proper worldview so important. Again, these are just some thoughts I had, don't look at it as my life's story or my current spiritual state, because it isn't.
I am the vinyl. Pressed in a mold and placed on a turntable that spins at dizzying speeds with endless monotony and frightening regularity. The needle finds the groove; the speaker crackles with a dusty uncertainty and then spews maxims, dogmas and endless tenants and absolutes without warmth or conviction. The nostalgic “warmth” of sound is an art gleaned from hours of sermons and being that ear to conversations, that shadow man that was neither part nor parcel to the discussion…parroting, nothing but parroting. When will Love marry my discourse?
This is the external. Inside it feels as if another mold has crushed me into a peculiar conformity—a strange implosion of worldview, ethics and purpose. It constricts me, slows thought; reasoning disappears and before the dust settles, a new figure haunts my shelf.
I have been encoded with billions of sound bytes, video files and MP3 tracks. As if the whole world were a voice and I the indiscriminate Ear that bends low and strains for the beautiful, the grotesque, the lie, the bawdy, the banal, the cryptic and vacuous statements of the upper echelons of style and culture, and pandered to the esoteric philosophies that gild my image but further confuse my mind. I am the dictator, the oppressed, the democracy and the corruption. I have the Bible as my constitution while cutting its entries and pasting in my own like some hallowed scrapbook of personal freedom. I have lain with the Golden Mistress in secret then cursed the wealthy for walking through sunlight with Her, arm in arm. I am that sad paradox. I am man—clothed in religion.
I am the vinyl. Pressed in a mold and placed on a turntable that spins at dizzying speeds with endless monotony and frightening regularity. The needle finds the groove; the speaker crackles with a dusty uncertainty and then spews maxims, dogmas and endless tenants and absolutes without warmth or conviction. The nostalgic “warmth” of sound is an art gleaned from hours of sermons and being that ear to conversations, that shadow man that was neither part nor parcel to the discussion…parroting, nothing but parroting. When will Love marry my discourse?
This is the external. Inside it feels as if another mold has crushed me into a peculiar conformity—a strange implosion of worldview, ethics and purpose. It constricts me, slows thought; reasoning disappears and before the dust settles, a new figure haunts my shelf.
I have been encoded with billions of sound bytes, video files and MP3 tracks. As if the whole world were a voice and I the indiscriminate Ear that bends low and strains for the beautiful, the grotesque, the lie, the bawdy, the banal, the cryptic and vacuous statements of the upper echelons of style and culture, and pandered to the esoteric philosophies that gild my image but further confuse my mind. I am the dictator, the oppressed, the democracy and the corruption. I have the Bible as my constitution while cutting its entries and pasting in my own like some hallowed scrapbook of personal freedom. I have lain with the Golden Mistress in secret then cursed the wealthy for walking through sunlight with Her, arm in arm. I am that sad paradox. I am man—clothed in religion.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
haiti and my dad...
My mother pointed something out to me at dinner the other night. My mother sometimes does this and I have to thank her for it really. She will compliment me on my blog and what I have written and then comes “the clause.” The motherly critique, and in this case, as in most, she was dead on.
“You forgot to thank your Dad.”
So I did. I would like to say there are reasons, but when one makes such a glaring omission, none of them really seem to stand up to any scrutiny. A day or two before Dad got there, I was trying to run the show on my own, with Mike as my runner. No help. I thought, the MAF guys are too busy and I can’t ask them. They quickly realized that it was not working for me to do it alone and jumped in and helped me out on top of all of their own work.
So, when Dad came, that part of the rodeo had already calmed down and he simply slipped right into a place one of the MAF guys had been filling. It was seamless. I didn’t have to worry about him being there, or even think too much about it. Dad was crowd control. He took the bookings or reservations which was one of the more difficult parts of the job and one I didn’t particularly like…dealing with people; desperate people.
I can’t say that by forgetting to thank Dad in my wrap-up post that I was paying him a compliment. There is something to be said for someone who does a job well enough that they aren’t noticed because they don’t require constant praise, but there is also something to ‘giving honor to whom honor is due.’
I don’t think Dad needs me to thank him. Like myself, the greatest sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from that job were the handshakes and smiles you got from grateful people. I don’t know too many people who are privileged to do mission work side by side with their Dad and enjoy doing it.
So, thanks Dad for raising me to honor God and to love the work that I grew up watching you do. Thanks for never making missions or deprivation of ‘the finer things in life’ to be a drudgery. Thanks most of all for living a godly example before me. It was a privilege to work with you. Thank you.
“You forgot to thank your Dad.”
So I did. I would like to say there are reasons, but when one makes such a glaring omission, none of them really seem to stand up to any scrutiny. A day or two before Dad got there, I was trying to run the show on my own, with Mike as my runner. No help. I thought, the MAF guys are too busy and I can’t ask them. They quickly realized that it was not working for me to do it alone and jumped in and helped me out on top of all of their own work.
So, when Dad came, that part of the rodeo had already calmed down and he simply slipped right into a place one of the MAF guys had been filling. It was seamless. I didn’t have to worry about him being there, or even think too much about it. Dad was crowd control. He took the bookings or reservations which was one of the more difficult parts of the job and one I didn’t particularly like…dealing with people; desperate people.
I can’t say that by forgetting to thank Dad in my wrap-up post that I was paying him a compliment. There is something to be said for someone who does a job well enough that they aren’t noticed because they don’t require constant praise, but there is also something to ‘giving honor to whom honor is due.’
I don’t think Dad needs me to thank him. Like myself, the greatest sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from that job were the handshakes and smiles you got from grateful people. I don’t know too many people who are privileged to do mission work side by side with their Dad and enjoy doing it.
So, thanks Dad for raising me to honor God and to love the work that I grew up watching you do. Thanks for never making missions or deprivation of ‘the finer things in life’ to be a drudgery. Thanks most of all for living a godly example before me. It was a privilege to work with you. Thank you.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
greyskypanerathoughts...
It is one of those perfect days. Low, grey clouds and the rain that falls soft on the earth. The whole earth is still. Only the wind dares stir the trees, grass and leave ripples on the face of the water. I was late to class today; an accidental miss-call from a friend my violent alarm. Awakening shot like consciousness from the barrel of a gun as I stared at the dancing numbers on my stereo clock.
There went my first class.
Not perhaps the perfect way to start a new week, but my host teacher didn’t seem to notice and really, with a day as beautiful as today, I think everyone is at ease. I called my boss to see if he needed me at work…he didn’t and so it was plan A. Panera.
Jack and I found ourselves with a bowl of fantastic soup, the best fontega chicken panini’s I’ve ever had and good conversation. Add to that a cup of hot tea and rain drops on the floor to ceiling windows and you have the recipe for problem solving and the birthplace of thought…or the recipe for no thought at all. Either way, the tea goes down smooth and the talk rises and falls like the breeze through the door as it opens and closes behind each patron.
I watched the keynote from Apple for this year, the launch of the new IPad. Another in a line of gadgets no one needs, but everyone wants. It is an amazing piece of machinery and technology and I found running scenarios in my head to justify the purchase of one later this year. Nothing concrete yet, but I’ll keep you posted. Haiti helps me trump any large superfluous buy on the future horizons. Somehow scrolling the New York Times with my fingers or reading an IBook or painting a digital picture with my fingertips seems emptier than the stomachs of the street children staring at the cold lenses of newsmen.
A few times today I have felt the sinister shadow of self-pity slipping in behind me. I went with very little luggage and came back the same. I did manage to pack in a sinus and ear infection with the dusty, sweaty clothes I crammed into a worn, green, US military issue, duffel bag as I boarded the plane and turned my back to one of the worst disasters in history.
Self-Pity.
Can you imagine that? I who have all the antibiotics and at-your-fingertips medical aid and am sitting in a fully adjustable, heavily padded, office chair in a temperature controlled environment and a fresh cup of coffee a few inches from my right hand. Self-pity?
I grew up in third world countries. I’ve seen poverty, malnutrition, and the empty look of a soul bound in animism and fear. I’ve lived off the warm coast of Ghana on the western side of Africa and I’ve grown playing in the dry, cool, sandstone highlands of Lesotho in the Southern tip of Africa. I’ve known the heat, red dirt and stench of Nigeria’s Lagos suburbs. I’ve walked the winding, claustrophobic passages of Zambian and Namibian marketplaces with the smell of fish emanating down every corridor from the center square. I have seen a few things in my short life and yet I have never looked at food and other blessings quite the same as now. I think I have so much it has become a disease.
It’s like I’m standing in a doorway to a room in some great mansion. I’m looking around the room, but I can’t really see what I’m looking for and I can’t tell why. I see an old chair in the corner, but my eyes are stinging and my eyelids flutter from some invisible auto response. The far end has a window closed by curtains and I walk there and as soon as the curtains come back, a beam of bright light blasts through the gloom like a comet and in its tail dances millions of dusty particles. Haiti was that comet for me. I now see the trappings that blurred my vision, closed my eyelids and kept me from being thankful and for realizing God’s amazing gifts in my life.
There will be two things in the aftermath of this tragedy that will be difficult to balance and to keep in check. The first is to be thankful for all that we have. The second, is not to feel guilty for all that we have. That doesn’t mean unnecessary indulgence, but if God has blessed you, don’t slap His hand away, but thank Him and use that blessing to be a blessing for others. An ear infection doesn’t seem all that bad now does it?
Monday, February 1, 2010
haiti...wrap up
I know there is no way to remember everything that happened the last three days I was in Haiti. I was not pulling bodies from the rubble, no child's life depended upon my years of schooling and skilled hands. There was no M4 slung across my chest, right index finger at the ready. I wasn’t piloting a C130 bringing much needed relief, but God gave me the opportunity to do just a little to help bring change to the people of Haiti.
I scheduled flights. I suppose in the seven days that I was in Haiti I helped run the equivalent of a small, international airline, three to five flights a day out of a three-ring binder and a laptop computer. I ate one meal a day and whatever granola bar or power bar I could get my hands on. I had to deal with ten to twenty people simultaneously vying for my attention while keeping track of forty to forty-five passports, a few green cards and entering all the info into a manifest; all of which I knew nothing about before I got there. I can look at a visa and within seconds know if it is valid or expired and know reasonably sure of any counterfeiting. I have had people yelling at me, praising me, hugging, kiss me and yes, I thought some wanted to hit me and probably would have if a large helicopter pilot by the name of Brian Parker hadn't become my bodyguard one day.
Lest I give a false impression, let me tell you how I did it. I am not organized, I don’t have that type A personality for leadership, but I felt God's strength when I needed it most. Beyond that I had the most amazing group of guys that praised me when I felt I was doing it all wrong, helped pick me up when I would rather just have gone to my tent and did any errand they could for me even though they had plenty to do themselves. So, to the guys from MAF: Dirk, Tim, Will, Mark, Mike, Gregory, Fanes, Rick, John, Todd, Brian, Scott and Mike Labady from Agape and Roland Lussier, you have my deep gratitude and respect.
My world was an airport full of soldiers, helicopters, C17, C130 and every other type of military transport plane. I met famous people and rubbed shoulders with the greatest people the Nascar circuit has ever had. I rode jumpseat with pilots Ivan and Mike of Joe Gibbs racing, always had a friendly smile from Jackie, Stormy, Ken, and so many other names I can't even remember now from the Hendricks and Joe Gibbs teams. God has blessed me beyond measure and yet, even though I am grateful for being able to help and for all of these "extras" that God threw my way, there is one thing I can't get out of my head.
I was in an airport in a nice Coleman tent with an air mattress. The people outside the heavily guarded fences were in tent cities and on streets. If you drive through Port-au-Prince at night you'll see the people getting ready for bed. They block off one lane of traffic and in that lane they begin to spread their blankets. The children roll restlessly as they fight sleep laying on a single blanket on the asphalt. I don't even know if they've eaten. My stress and one MRE meal a day seem pretty good juxtaposed next to the hopelessness that stares those children full in the face.
We in the west in our comfortable arm chairs, designer coffee shops and flat screen TV's cannot comprehend it. I was there and I still can't. I do know this. Don't be like the media and be so quick to judge people like the ten that were arrested at the Dominican Republican border. I stared at a lot of paperwork this past week and I had to tell a lot of desperate parents that under the circumstances they couldn't get their child, the one sleeping in the street, out of Haiti. The Haitian's don't know the procedures, UNICEF is a mess and no one knows what is happening. The Embassy has closed ears and all of Haiti is in shambles. Next time the media says a church group or someone else was "child trafficking" don't be so quick to believe it. There are a lot of good people there and if you saw the hurting, you just might have tried the same thing. I don’t condone any law breaking, but if you had met Rob, you might understand the despondency of some of these parents.
Rob hung out with us for several days. He was from Colorado, his wife was in a rundown hotel in Ft. Lauderdale while he walked around Port-au-Prince, trying desperately to get his son and return to safety. He and his wife have known loved, visited, spent thousands and thousands no doubt trying to get their son adopted in Haiti. They have been victim to a corrupt government and greedy officials who see wealth and exploit helpless children, leaving their lives in limbo in order to get money from people (many who cannot have their own children) who long to show that child love. Rob was so discouraged. It hurt my heart to see him. The last time I saw Rob he said he was taking his boy back to the orphanage and he would have to return home the next day. The government and UNICEF had shut down all adoptions, even though they’d been in the process for years. I never saw Rob again. I hope he didn’t try anything desperate like those ten at the Dominican Republic border, but after looking in his eyes and hearing his story, watching him lay back on a tractor tire and just stare at the stars without the will to do anything, I can’ t say I would blame him.
I hope none of us in the coming months and years will forget Haiti. Like the AIDS crisis in Africa, Haiti is fast becoming a "sexy" issue that everyone jumps on because it makes them feel good about themselves and their compassion. It's easy to go to a concert, buy and album on Itunes or wear a trendy t-shirt...getting your hands dirty is another thing. My hat and prayers go off to all the missionaries, orphanage workers, doctors, soldiers, helicopter pilots and many, many others that are in Haiti right now. The flip side is this, if you have bought an album or a t-shirt in true compassion, than you’ve done your best. Not everyone can go down there and certainly not everyone should.
Sorry this is a bit disjointed. Some experiences you cannot pull into words and some images won't fit within the frame of a paragraph. Thanks for everything you are doing for the Haitian people. One thing to leave you with that Mark Williams, the program director for MAF in Haiti, a man who has lived over twenty years there said; no matter what we do, if we do it without Christ’s love, we are clanging brass and tinkling cymbal.
I scheduled flights. I suppose in the seven days that I was in Haiti I helped run the equivalent of a small, international airline, three to five flights a day out of a three-ring binder and a laptop computer. I ate one meal a day and whatever granola bar or power bar I could get my hands on. I had to deal with ten to twenty people simultaneously vying for my attention while keeping track of forty to forty-five passports, a few green cards and entering all the info into a manifest; all of which I knew nothing about before I got there. I can look at a visa and within seconds know if it is valid or expired and know reasonably sure of any counterfeiting. I have had people yelling at me, praising me, hugging, kiss me and yes, I thought some wanted to hit me and probably would have if a large helicopter pilot by the name of Brian Parker hadn't become my bodyguard one day.
Lest I give a false impression, let me tell you how I did it. I am not organized, I don’t have that type A personality for leadership, but I felt God's strength when I needed it most. Beyond that I had the most amazing group of guys that praised me when I felt I was doing it all wrong, helped pick me up when I would rather just have gone to my tent and did any errand they could for me even though they had plenty to do themselves. So, to the guys from MAF: Dirk, Tim, Will, Mark, Mike, Gregory, Fanes, Rick, John, Todd, Brian, Scott and Mike Labady from Agape and Roland Lussier, you have my deep gratitude and respect.
My world was an airport full of soldiers, helicopters, C17, C130 and every other type of military transport plane. I met famous people and rubbed shoulders with the greatest people the Nascar circuit has ever had. I rode jumpseat with pilots Ivan and Mike of Joe Gibbs racing, always had a friendly smile from Jackie, Stormy, Ken, and so many other names I can't even remember now from the Hendricks and Joe Gibbs teams. God has blessed me beyond measure and yet, even though I am grateful for being able to help and for all of these "extras" that God threw my way, there is one thing I can't get out of my head.
I was in an airport in a nice Coleman tent with an air mattress. The people outside the heavily guarded fences were in tent cities and on streets. If you drive through Port-au-Prince at night you'll see the people getting ready for bed. They block off one lane of traffic and in that lane they begin to spread their blankets. The children roll restlessly as they fight sleep laying on a single blanket on the asphalt. I don't even know if they've eaten. My stress and one MRE meal a day seem pretty good juxtaposed next to the hopelessness that stares those children full in the face.
We in the west in our comfortable arm chairs, designer coffee shops and flat screen TV's cannot comprehend it. I was there and I still can't. I do know this. Don't be like the media and be so quick to judge people like the ten that were arrested at the Dominican Republican border. I stared at a lot of paperwork this past week and I had to tell a lot of desperate parents that under the circumstances they couldn't get their child, the one sleeping in the street, out of Haiti. The Haitian's don't know the procedures, UNICEF is a mess and no one knows what is happening. The Embassy has closed ears and all of Haiti is in shambles. Next time the media says a church group or someone else was "child trafficking" don't be so quick to believe it. There are a lot of good people there and if you saw the hurting, you just might have tried the same thing. I don’t condone any law breaking, but if you had met Rob, you might understand the despondency of some of these parents.
Rob hung out with us for several days. He was from Colorado, his wife was in a rundown hotel in Ft. Lauderdale while he walked around Port-au-Prince, trying desperately to get his son and return to safety. He and his wife have known loved, visited, spent thousands and thousands no doubt trying to get their son adopted in Haiti. They have been victim to a corrupt government and greedy officials who see wealth and exploit helpless children, leaving their lives in limbo in order to get money from people (many who cannot have their own children) who long to show that child love. Rob was so discouraged. It hurt my heart to see him. The last time I saw Rob he said he was taking his boy back to the orphanage and he would have to return home the next day. The government and UNICEF had shut down all adoptions, even though they’d been in the process for years. I never saw Rob again. I hope he didn’t try anything desperate like those ten at the Dominican Republic border, but after looking in his eyes and hearing his story, watching him lay back on a tractor tire and just stare at the stars without the will to do anything, I can’ t say I would blame him.
I hope none of us in the coming months and years will forget Haiti. Like the AIDS crisis in Africa, Haiti is fast becoming a "sexy" issue that everyone jumps on because it makes them feel good about themselves and their compassion. It's easy to go to a concert, buy and album on Itunes or wear a trendy t-shirt...getting your hands dirty is another thing. My hat and prayers go off to all the missionaries, orphanage workers, doctors, soldiers, helicopter pilots and many, many others that are in Haiti right now. The flip side is this, if you have bought an album or a t-shirt in true compassion, than you’ve done your best. Not everyone can go down there and certainly not everyone should.
Sorry this is a bit disjointed. Some experiences you cannot pull into words and some images won't fit within the frame of a paragraph. Thanks for everything you are doing for the Haitian people. One thing to leave you with that Mark Williams, the program director for MAF in Haiti, a man who has lived over twenty years there said; no matter what we do, if we do it without Christ’s love, we are clanging brass and tinkling cymbal.
Friday, January 29, 2010
haiti...day 4
Dad came today. Even when you don't rely on your parents and you feel adequate or perhaps not adequate, but able to deal with a task, it's nice to have your parents there. If for nothing else to say to them...you did alright, you raised me well.
What I'm doing is rewarding and the handshakes I recieve and the smiles I get far out weigh those self-indulgent few that think because they came and volunteered, we owe them a free ride. I am blessed and tired.
What I'm doing is rewarding and the handshakes I recieve and the smiles I get far out weigh those self-indulgent few that think because they came and volunteered, we owe them a free ride. I am blessed and tired.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
haiti...day 3
I know I should probably put this in the same format, style...whatever as last time, but I don't think I will. It is 10:31 p.m. and I am sweating profusely in the hot, close air of the MAF office. My eyes are getting a bit heavy, but I feel better. James Collins did a favor for a Portugese fire fighter unit that have a really nice camp next to us on the air field. They have little portable shower stalls with water bags and wooden pallets for floors. It feels good to be clean. This will be my first night on the air field.
I have been staying with missionaries and that would probably be a good idea, but I just can't get used to sleeping in a two story, concrete house when all around me are piles of concrete that once were two or three story houses. It is interesting being at the airfield at night. Soldiers from countries all over the world wander the dusty paths in between the little tent "villages" with their separate colors flying overhead.
Today was hectic. There were three Saab aircraft today, two from Hendricks racing and one from Joe Gibbs racing. It was crazy and then the MAF guys saw me bashing my brains out trying to keep forty some people straight for one flight when there were about hundred plus probably clamoring for either a booking on another day, or else trying to get on a flight that day. It didn't help that Rooney and Negron and their small entourage were there. I'm no respecter of persons, but a Congressman does make you want to do the job a bit better.
The first flight went okay, but by the second it was crazy. I had to bump people from the second flight, to the first flight and then I had to bump people from the third flight to the second flight and still try and fill the third flight. It's like trying to keep track of three commercial flights, but you don't have a computer system, you don't have passport control there and you don't have a staff. If it weren't for the MAF guys, I think the fetal position and tears would have been the only recourse...okay, enough whining. God was good to me and it all worked out.
There were problems with immigration, manifests that had to be altered resent and then altered again and resent again. I don't even know how all these people got here, but they all want to get out and sometimes that can be interesting. This is compounded by the long trip up to immigration. I only did one trip, but I still can't get over driving around huge military aircraft on a little, green motorcycle. Life is always amazing when you're serving God.
I've had to turn a lot of people down. I've also had the privilege to get some very pleased parents who have waited for years, out to the U.S. with their adopted children in arms. The handshakes, smiles and "thanks" give you a good feeling even when it's crazy.
Well, my dad will be here tomorrow...looking forward to that. All the MAF and MFI guys and the guys from Operation Blessing that are working out of this hangar are great. I said it's like some utopian community, we all share and share alike.
The MRE's sit heavy, but I'm thankful for the food. I'm finding out that lunch is not an option doing the flight coordinating. Cheers and goodnight.
I have been staying with missionaries and that would probably be a good idea, but I just can't get used to sleeping in a two story, concrete house when all around me are piles of concrete that once were two or three story houses. It is interesting being at the airfield at night. Soldiers from countries all over the world wander the dusty paths in between the little tent "villages" with their separate colors flying overhead.
Today was hectic. There were three Saab aircraft today, two from Hendricks racing and one from Joe Gibbs racing. It was crazy and then the MAF guys saw me bashing my brains out trying to keep forty some people straight for one flight when there were about hundred plus probably clamoring for either a booking on another day, or else trying to get on a flight that day. It didn't help that Rooney and Negron and their small entourage were there. I'm no respecter of persons, but a Congressman does make you want to do the job a bit better.
The first flight went okay, but by the second it was crazy. I had to bump people from the second flight, to the first flight and then I had to bump people from the third flight to the second flight and still try and fill the third flight. It's like trying to keep track of three commercial flights, but you don't have a computer system, you don't have passport control there and you don't have a staff. If it weren't for the MAF guys, I think the fetal position and tears would have been the only recourse...okay, enough whining. God was good to me and it all worked out.
There were problems with immigration, manifests that had to be altered resent and then altered again and resent again. I don't even know how all these people got here, but they all want to get out and sometimes that can be interesting. This is compounded by the long trip up to immigration. I only did one trip, but I still can't get over driving around huge military aircraft on a little, green motorcycle. Life is always amazing when you're serving God.
I've had to turn a lot of people down. I've also had the privilege to get some very pleased parents who have waited for years, out to the U.S. with their adopted children in arms. The handshakes, smiles and "thanks" give you a good feeling even when it's crazy.
Well, my dad will be here tomorrow...looking forward to that. All the MAF and MFI guys and the guys from Operation Blessing that are working out of this hangar are great. I said it's like some utopian community, we all share and share alike.
The MRE's sit heavy, but I'm thankful for the food. I'm finding out that lunch is not an option doing the flight coordinating. Cheers and goodnight.
Monday, January 25, 2010
haiti...day 2
The sun is starting to come up when Brian comes and wakes me up. We eat a bit of Cap'n Crunch and then get ready to go to the airport. I walk to the end of the road and get a bird's eye view of people living in the post-quake squalor down in a ravine below the hill where the house is.
It's down the road to the airport and my camera is out. The houses are unbelievable. You see a building that is now standing about eight to ten feet above the ground and you count the floors, sometimes three perhaps four, lying like the layers of a sandwich. Unbelievable. You keep hearing things like "you can't believe it until you see it." It's true. There are no bodies now, no gruesome sights and life seems to be going on as normal as possible. Normal, until you see them shut down a lane of the road at night to sleep in the street, terrified to go into the buildings, now laced with cracks.
We get to the airport and it is instantly crazy. I have never heard my name so much. It takes no time for people to realize Jeff is gone and it is Jeremy now who they need to see to get out of Haiti. I feel like a celebrity, but one that no one wants to be. I thought this was supposed to be a slow day. It was only one large flight, one of Joe Gibbs racing team, but it seems that slow is not in the cards. About twenty people don't show up and I have to wait until the last minute to take standby people...it gets really hectic.
It feels kind of weird. There's Gary Uber, in scrubs, standing off to the side waiting for Joe Negron and Congressman Rooney and their aides. I shake hands once they're off the plane and ready to go. They look a little shell shocked but the airport is so crazy that I don't blame them. It almost seems surreal to drive a little, green motorcycle down an international tarmac past U.S. soldiers sitting by their trucks while right in front of you are deafening C130 planes being loaded and off loaded. Choppers take off and land and the traffic in the sky is staggering.
The Joe Gibbs team brought us egg mcmuffins, something I don't realize until about 2 p.m. when I still haven't eaten. My MRE sits on the side of the desk...I guess tomorrow.
It's about 4 p.m. and I'm sitting at the desk working on checking and returning emails. Suddenly it feels like I"m swaying side to side, but the other two pilots don't bat an eye so I don't either. Turns out it is a 4.2 aftershock. I guess I would have always thought a 4.3 would feel worse, but it feels different from the giant planes taking off.
It's back to the missionary house and once again, I feel a bit weird in the house, but I guess I just trust Jesus and leave things in His hands. I am going to switch to the airport tomorrow. It's not as nice and I don't know in the long run if it's safer for other reasons, but I'll join James Collins in a tent.
Well, goodnight. Thanks for your prayers.
It's down the road to the airport and my camera is out. The houses are unbelievable. You see a building that is now standing about eight to ten feet above the ground and you count the floors, sometimes three perhaps four, lying like the layers of a sandwich. Unbelievable. You keep hearing things like "you can't believe it until you see it." It's true. There are no bodies now, no gruesome sights and life seems to be going on as normal as possible. Normal, until you see them shut down a lane of the road at night to sleep in the street, terrified to go into the buildings, now laced with cracks.
We get to the airport and it is instantly crazy. I have never heard my name so much. It takes no time for people to realize Jeff is gone and it is Jeremy now who they need to see to get out of Haiti. I feel like a celebrity, but one that no one wants to be. I thought this was supposed to be a slow day. It was only one large flight, one of Joe Gibbs racing team, but it seems that slow is not in the cards. About twenty people don't show up and I have to wait until the last minute to take standby people...it gets really hectic.
It feels kind of weird. There's Gary Uber, in scrubs, standing off to the side waiting for Joe Negron and Congressman Rooney and their aides. I shake hands once they're off the plane and ready to go. They look a little shell shocked but the airport is so crazy that I don't blame them. It almost seems surreal to drive a little, green motorcycle down an international tarmac past U.S. soldiers sitting by their trucks while right in front of you are deafening C130 planes being loaded and off loaded. Choppers take off and land and the traffic in the sky is staggering.
The Joe Gibbs team brought us egg mcmuffins, something I don't realize until about 2 p.m. when I still haven't eaten. My MRE sits on the side of the desk...I guess tomorrow.
It's about 4 p.m. and I'm sitting at the desk working on checking and returning emails. Suddenly it feels like I"m swaying side to side, but the other two pilots don't bat an eye so I don't either. Turns out it is a 4.2 aftershock. I guess I would have always thought a 4.3 would feel worse, but it feels different from the giant planes taking off.
It's back to the missionary house and once again, I feel a bit weird in the house, but I guess I just trust Jesus and leave things in His hands. I am going to switch to the airport tomorrow. It's not as nice and I don't know in the long run if it's safer for other reasons, but I'll join James Collins in a tent.
Well, goodnight. Thanks for your prayers.
haiti...day 1
I arrived at the Ft. Pierce airport and awaited my marching orders. Slight chill in the air, MFI staff preparing for the day, bleary-eyed and coffee in hand. I decline the coffee and gear up for the flight down. I know I'm going on a private jet parked just outside the hangar. A group of doctors is weighing their luggage and medical supplies. I send my bag on a later flight to make room for the doctors belongings and equipment.
We are told it's time to go board. Our pilot's name is Bob, a kind gentleman with graying hair and mustache. I am the second on board and we are all just blown away. I hear the exclamations of shock behind me. Leather seats, wood-grain and cabinets. Every handle, seatbelt latch and fixture is gilded and a big tray of donuts and bagels is on the front galley. I have never experience anything like this. The guys are from Flight Options and like so many others, their hoping for anyway that they can do to help out.
Ah, just rich people, they don't miss it.
It's tempting to think so, but we ask the mechanic and he says it takes about ten to twelve thousand dollars an hour to operate the plane...that doesn't include the pay of the mechanic and two pilots on board. This is no small donation. This flight I'm taking, just for my trip down, is about 20,000 dollars in costs alone. It's nice to have this, because I know once we land, all the luxury is off. The doctors and nurses are fantastic. A pharmacists sits across from me and his wife, a former ER nurse along with a nurse practitioner and another nurse and Haitian translator sit beside me on the long couch.
We land and it's hot and it's dry. I was expecting dripping, tropical humidity, but this reminds me more of Arizona. The first day is hectic. I'm running around with Jeff who coordinates all the flights out, bookings and passenger lists, plus getting passports to the main terminal to stamp out. It is a crazy job and it is soon to be mine. Mike Labady helps run the passports when he can and it is a God send. When a flight comes in, everyone on the flight gives Jeff (now me) their passports after which he gives them to Mike or if Mike cannot he takes them himself. To do this you have to take a bumpy, dirty and rocky road through what looks like a squatter camp of rescue workers, private security teams, medical teams and military. Most of the camps have their own flag flying above their military-esque tents and their ensignia on the side of one or more of the tents. You go past the gate going and coming from the airport and past the fuel depot.
It looks like pictures of Iraq. Soldiers stand watch, weapons slung across their checks, flak jackets and zip ties for detaining slipped around the rings on their vests. They usually just wave us by and then its around the planes until you get to the main terminal to check the passports.
Once you're back it is getting the people (if you've already had their passports stamped)on to the plane and ready to go home...usually they're pretty anxious. It is a long day, my head is splitting from the heat and the noise. We had at least four Blackhawk helicopters land right on the tarmac to drop off some wounded going to the University of Miami tent hospital right behind the hangar.
We go to the missionaries' houses and split up to stay tonight. Uncle Rick and Will White (his house) invite me to stay there with the two MAF pilots, Brian and Scott, who flew a Kodiak down from Nampa, ID. I am nervous to be sure staying in a two story concrete house after driving by rows of houses that are reduced to rubble. I am too tired to worry much longer and go to sleep.
We are told it's time to go board. Our pilot's name is Bob, a kind gentleman with graying hair and mustache. I am the second on board and we are all just blown away. I hear the exclamations of shock behind me. Leather seats, wood-grain and cabinets. Every handle, seatbelt latch and fixture is gilded and a big tray of donuts and bagels is on the front galley. I have never experience anything like this. The guys are from Flight Options and like so many others, their hoping for anyway that they can do to help out.
Ah, just rich people, they don't miss it.
It's tempting to think so, but we ask the mechanic and he says it takes about ten to twelve thousand dollars an hour to operate the plane...that doesn't include the pay of the mechanic and two pilots on board. This is no small donation. This flight I'm taking, just for my trip down, is about 20,000 dollars in costs alone. It's nice to have this, because I know once we land, all the luxury is off. The doctors and nurses are fantastic. A pharmacists sits across from me and his wife, a former ER nurse along with a nurse practitioner and another nurse and Haitian translator sit beside me on the long couch.
We land and it's hot and it's dry. I was expecting dripping, tropical humidity, but this reminds me more of Arizona. The first day is hectic. I'm running around with Jeff who coordinates all the flights out, bookings and passenger lists, plus getting passports to the main terminal to stamp out. It is a crazy job and it is soon to be mine. Mike Labady helps run the passports when he can and it is a God send. When a flight comes in, everyone on the flight gives Jeff (now me) their passports after which he gives them to Mike or if Mike cannot he takes them himself. To do this you have to take a bumpy, dirty and rocky road through what looks like a squatter camp of rescue workers, private security teams, medical teams and military. Most of the camps have their own flag flying above their military-esque tents and their ensignia on the side of one or more of the tents. You go past the gate going and coming from the airport and past the fuel depot.
It looks like pictures of Iraq. Soldiers stand watch, weapons slung across their checks, flak jackets and zip ties for detaining slipped around the rings on their vests. They usually just wave us by and then its around the planes until you get to the main terminal to check the passports.
Once you're back it is getting the people (if you've already had their passports stamped)on to the plane and ready to go home...usually they're pretty anxious. It is a long day, my head is splitting from the heat and the noise. We had at least four Blackhawk helicopters land right on the tarmac to drop off some wounded going to the University of Miami tent hospital right behind the hangar.
We go to the missionaries' houses and split up to stay tonight. Uncle Rick and Will White (his house) invite me to stay there with the two MAF pilots, Brian and Scott, who flew a Kodiak down from Nampa, ID. I am nervous to be sure staying in a two story concrete house after driving by rows of houses that are reduced to rubble. I am too tired to worry much longer and go to sleep.
Monday, January 18, 2010
student teaching...
has begun today. It certainly was nothing earth shattering and perhaps that is because I didn't actually teach anything and won't until next week. I can't say that I exactly mind...it gives me breathing room to get used to the kids, used to the setting, etc. My first lessons will be on Nathaniel Hawthorne. I am to have the students read "The Birthmark" and "The Celestial Railroad." My first two choices would have been "The Birthmark" and "The Minister's Black Veil," but I am for this set of lessons, locked into an existing unit by the homeroom teacher, so I'll have to wait for another chance.
How do you get a group of sixteen or seventeen year-olds to grasp the significance of these stories? How do you get them excited about the fact that Hawthorne spent about a decade secluded in an attic more-or-less researching his Puritan ancestors and their witch burning, etc. before embarking on these stories of hidden guilt and suppressed sin and its effects. Any suggestions are certainly welcome.
The MAF missionaries that were evacuated from Haiti have just left for their respective U.S. homes. The infrastructure of the country is completely dissolved and so they have reduced their force from eight families to just four pilots at a time in the country. The pilots will take rotating shifts every week or two. They are going to need a lot of prayer and financial support to rotate these pilots (some who have been their twenty years or more and really know the people and the culture). If anyone reading this is interested in donating to a worthy cause (and believe me their worth it), you can go to this site here: www.maf.org and just follow the tabs to donate. I have personally known the regional director since I was about twelve years old and I having spent the last weekend with these pilots and their families, I can say with assurance that these people have Christ's heartbeat and a deep love for Haiti.
If you want a personal account from one of the missionaries, I suggest www.mafkrul.blogspot.com .
Another site for donating where I know it will do a lot of good is:
www.missionaryflights.org
I know this hasn't been the best blog entry, but I hope it will at least encourage you to give to some local efforts that have been on the ground there and mobilized from moments after the quake. Keep praying and keep giving.
How do you get a group of sixteen or seventeen year-olds to grasp the significance of these stories? How do you get them excited about the fact that Hawthorne spent about a decade secluded in an attic more-or-less researching his Puritan ancestors and their witch burning, etc. before embarking on these stories of hidden guilt and suppressed sin and its effects. Any suggestions are certainly welcome.
The MAF missionaries that were evacuated from Haiti have just left for their respective U.S. homes. The infrastructure of the country is completely dissolved and so they have reduced their force from eight families to just four pilots at a time in the country. The pilots will take rotating shifts every week or two. They are going to need a lot of prayer and financial support to rotate these pilots (some who have been their twenty years or more and really know the people and the culture). If anyone reading this is interested in donating to a worthy cause (and believe me their worth it), you can go to this site here: www.maf.org and just follow the tabs to donate. I have personally known the regional director since I was about twelve years old and I having spent the last weekend with these pilots and their families, I can say with assurance that these people have Christ's heartbeat and a deep love for Haiti.
If you want a personal account from one of the missionaries, I suggest www.mafkrul.blogspot.com .
Another site for donating where I know it will do a lot of good is:
www.missionaryflights.org
I know this hasn't been the best blog entry, but I hope it will at least encourage you to give to some local efforts that have been on the ground there and mobilized from moments after the quake. Keep praying and keep giving.
Monday, January 4, 2010
this is a snapshot...
Most of the pictures I take could never be called a "snapshot" in the language of this blog. A snapshot here tells a story. Most of them are the memories I have inside that are waiting to be shared either through history or fiction, but a few, like this one, came through the lens. This is a snapshot.
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