Don't rebuild Haiti; reimagine it

Last month we wrote a blog about Haiti.  You can go here to read it if you missed it.  

Jesse had a good, life changing trip and made it home safely, and it looks like my cousins will have James and Pharah soon. Thank you for your prayers for them. 


I was reminded of them yesterday when I saw a news headline on the internet yesterday which said there will probably be 300,000 dead in Haiti because of the earthquake.  I can't even imagine what it must be like there. 


The article yesterday reminded me of something I read from Steven Van Zandt.  He is a guitarist for Bruce Springsteen's band.  Other than that, I don't know anything about this guy.


I'll admit that whenever I hear some "wisdom" coming from an actor or musician I normally quickly turn off the radio or shut off the site online.  Their insight, normally, doesn't have anything to do with the way we try to live our lives.  I won't go into who my top 5 are that make me want to puke when they open their mouths.  


So as you can see it would be weird for to me to actually read something serious from someone in show business.  But there was something about this article that caught my eye and had me reading it.  


I personally would add different people to his group but his overall idea, to me, is pretty good.  


Here is what he wrote:


I watched “Meet the Press” host David Gregory recently ask former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush what it’s going to take to restore Haiti to how it was, my heart started paying attention.

Gregory was asking the normal questions, and Clinton and Bush gave the appropriate answers. But it occurred to me that, my God, unless something radical is done, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Haiti will be restored to what it was. And that’s the last thing Haiti needs.

I won’t bore you with statistics — well, OK, just a few. From the Congressional Research Service before the earthquake:

• 76 percent of the population lived on less than $2 a day.

• 54 percent lived on less than $1 a day.

• 81 percent did not receive the minimum daily ration of food as defined by the World Health Organization.

• 66 percent had no access to electricity.

• 52 percent did not have access to clean water, basic sanitation, basic health needs and basic education.

Haiti doesn’t need to be rebuilt. Haiti needs to be reimagined.

The Haitian people need a partnership with a group of individuals that will help them, for the first time in their existence, establish a state-of-the-art infrastructure that will last 100 years, unencumbered by political and economic corruption. Then let the ingenuity, work ethic and spirit of the people do the rest.

So it’s time to call on Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Paul Allen, George Clooney, Robert Johnson, Angelina Jolie, Jay-Z, Brad Pitt, Wyclef Jean, John W. Thompson, Bono, Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, Sean Combs, the Rolling Stones, Jonathan Demme, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, David Geffen, James Cameron, John Lasseter, futurist architects and engineers, and anybody else with expertise, vision and passion to organize a summit of Haitian leaders, with Clinton as chairman, and design a new Haiti. Let’s make it the high-tech capital of the world.

We need to start solving problems permanently on this planet instead of wasting time, money and energy on temporary Band-Aids that make us feel good.

This horrible event will be all the more horrible if we don’t learn from it. Either tens of thousands of lives have been lost in vain, or they have left us the one chance to begin to build the archetypal country of the future.

There will never again be an opportunity so obvious or a people more deserving of a chance to prove what they can do.

All the symbolic gestures are nice — and even important — but they will come and go.

Whatever money gets raised is vitally important right now, but it, too, will come and go.

For once, let’s do all those things, and then let’s do something that helps permanently.

Let’s not rebuild Haiti; let’s reimagine it.

And then make it happen.

Haiti

We wanted to ask you to pray for a couple of families.

First is Jesse and Kacy. Here they are with their two boys.They are some of our best buddies from the states.  They are also an amazing part of our ministry and our lives.  How God brought our families together is really cool.  That's a blog for another day. 

Jesse leaves today for Haiti. He is part of a group that is going (for a week) to help an orphanage.

Please pray for his, and the group's, safety and that as they help, in any way possible, that they can share, show and be the love of Christ to every person they come in contact with.

We also would ask for prayers for my cousin Andy and his wife Jeanne.  Wish I had a current picture of these guys so you could put a face with your prayers but I don't have one.  They too have been an incredible part of this ministry.  They have been with our family from the first day we felt a calling to come to Brasil.  We feel very close to them even though we don't get to see them very much.  I could also do a blog about them and how God has intertwined our lives over the years and through thousands of miles.  Another blog for another day.  

They are also very special to us. 

  
For the last few years they have been sponsoring a couple of kids at an orphanage in Haiti. The kids' names are James and Pharah.

We emailed them after the earthquake hit and found out that both of the kids were fine.

After years of praying and asking God if adopting them would be the right thing to do, God gave, through this disaster, a confirmation to both of them that they needed to adopt James and Pharah. God has given them peace about this big decision.

Because of the way things are happening right now it looks like this process will be greatly speeded up and there is a possibility that the kids can by with Andy and Jeanne within a few weeks.

Yesterday Jeanne sent out an email that shared what the day to day life is like for James and Pharah. She said, "Andy and I have been grieving the losses in Haiti. The World Relief building we went to each visit was destroyed...but the Morquette's home and the orphanage and new hospital had little damage. James and Pharah are ok...but the hospital is on the property and the children are being exposed to horrific scenes as so many injured flow in the hospital and the overflow is being treated outside in plain view of the kids."

We ask that you pray that all the paperwork for the adoption can be speeded up and that James and Pharah can be in their new, loving, Christian home soon.  No child needs to see the things they are seeing on a daily basis.  

 

The more I read about what is happening there the more grateful I am for people like Jesse and Kacy and Andy and Jeanne who are willing to do whatever God is asking them to do to help right now.  The people there are lacking food and clean water.  Diseases are spreading.  I've read where the people are fighting for the aid that is being delivered.  This is a picture I took off a news website of the looting going on. 

I also read this morning that criminals are raping women and young girls.  The national police chief said that 7,000 prisoners escaped from the National Penitentiary the night of the earthquake.  He said it took 5 years to apprehend them and now they are "running wild."

It's not a good place to be right now.  

And that is why now, especially now, in the midst of all of the suffering, crime and chaos, these people need to be reminded of God's goodness.  They need someone to care for them the way Jesus would. 

I am proud that these two couples we know are doing everything they can do to bring Christ's love to the people of Haiti.  I believe God will greatly bless their faithfulness.  

Please pray for these families as they minister to the people of Haiti this week and, hopefully, for many years to come.