70 Miles From Hell - Sermon preached after the earthquake in 2010

Warrenton Presbyterian Church                                                                                                               January 31, 2010

70 Miles from Hell

Stories from Haiti

Pastor Carrie Evans

These are some of the things that I’ve heard since we returned from Haiti:

• Nothing good comes out of Haiti except drugs, why should we bother?
• People have to realize that when you live in a third world country, this is what you get.
• They didn’t have food, clothing and shelter before the earthquake, why should they have it now.
• Finally, if we give freely to them, then they will simply want more and eventually take all that we have.

My friends, I want to share a translation of a Haitian prayer for you from a phenomenal book, God is No Stranger.  

Lord your word is like alcohol poured in an open wound

Only when it burns and stings do we know it is working.

Amen.

Now my friends, hear some true facts about Haiti, specifically rural Haiti where our team recently served:

·         The unemployment rate is 85%

·         The average daily wage for the 15% who are employed is $3/day.

·         The lack of infrastructure that you keep hearing about on the news results in:

No postal service, sure no junk mail, but no communication, no connection to the world

                                No electricity, no lights, they rise with the sun and sleep with the sun’s setting.

                                No plumbing, no running water, no toilets, no faucets, no showers… no water

                                No birth records, in fact our dogs have more papers and shots than most Haitians.

All of this and an earthquake that devastated a country already on its’ knees and threw them into the dust. 

Now, before we get too comfortable in our cushioned pews and heated sanctuary, I want to remind you of something I learned this past summer at the Heifer Farm in Massachusetts.  The fact that we sit where we are today is not of our own doing.  Nothing, absolutely nothing that we’ve done in this life, no matter how good and true we’ve been , has led us to deserve the fact that our birth certificate says United States instead of India, Ethiopia or the slums of Port au Prince.  No matter who we are today and what we’ve done with our lives, the place of our birth is nothing we’ve deserved but a gift. In our case, it is grace. That thought sends me to my knees. 

                So I’ll ask you. Do we dare even ask the question of the Pharisee, “Who is my neighbor?” Do we dare to join our voices with Cain and ask: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Most likely not, because we already know the answer. 

                My own mind has been haunted by many nightmares over the last few weeks.  All that I knew to be firm, sure and certain gave way under my feet in that small town of Terrier Rouge, Haiti.  The earth, the land, the foundation shook. It gave way. What once was … was no more.  Yet the earth falling into an abyss wasn’t the most frightening of my dreams.

 I wondered if the world would care; it was only Haiti after all.

 I wondered if the once glimmer of hope in Haiti would survive after children, schools and churches crumbled to the ground.  

After I came home, I felt the love, prayers and support of an amazing community. But, I wonder if your hearts would have been just as moved if the nine of us had been sitting on solid ground in the comfort of our own homes instead of 70 miles from the epicenter of hell in Haiti.

I’ve come to realize that what happened in Haiti saddens many people in different ways.  Underlying the truth of that statement is that it saddens most people because, in fact, they care very little.  Most people have no direct connection to the people of Haiti.   Some people dismiss Haitians as not human, not people. I suspect this occurs to protect us rather than live the truth that we are called not to apathy but to action. Today, we care about many things, like where we’ll eat lunch and how to finish our science project. Today, we worry about not if we’ll have food, but what we’ll fix from our overstuffed pantries.  Today we think about matching our shoes to our pants, catching up on our dvr’d shows and singing in tune.  

For a moment I want us to realize that we are not the center of the universe and the epicenter of the earthquake that shook an entire country is not about us.  It is about them.  Even more importantly it is about all of us.  As the poet John Donne said, (and this is found in chapter one of the book For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway):

“No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.”

As you hear these stories, you must also remember James’ words: “… just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.”            

I want to share my haunting images with you. I want you to feel the love of our brothers and sisters in Christ, not through the rantings and ravings of Pat Robertson, not through the violent images of CNN and certainly not through the stereotypes that we’ve thrown upon a nation that has been torn in war and instability for the past 200 years.

                Here is my Haiti:

                As we drove the 45 miles or so from Cap Hatien to Terrier Rouge, the Sunday before all hell broke loose, on a recently paved road, we were greeted in one small town by the children of a local school. They were completely dressed in elaborate costumes, clean and pressed, singing songs of praise and dancing in the streets.  They had joy in their step.  They beat makeshift drums and smiled the joy of knowing that they were children of God.  Each Sunday following Epiphany to Ash Wednesday, the children of Haiti will gather in the street to praise the Lord for the gifts of Christ. Is this a country that made a pact with Satan? Not through the images my eyes saw.

                Days later, a premature infant, born at 7 months, was carried into the compound by four loving aunts.  The blankets that covered him weighed more than the tiny baby himself.  His mother had died in childbirth six weeks earlier.  His aunts came seeking life for their dear nephew.  It was nothing short of a miracle that he had survived this long. No tears fell from his eyes and his skin was held in place by a pinch showing the near death signs of dehydration.  The aunts came in hope looking for life.  

“I came so that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10

                My images of Haiti and the man who holds them in their hearts is Pere Bruno.  Mike and I handed out glow sticks to the children around dusk one evening and in the process began a small riot. Out of nowhere walks Pere Bruno, stern and faithful, quietly ordering the children in line. “un…UN.”  Pere Bruno, his heart heavy and eyes dim and filled with tears as he tells the story of his daughter Raichel driving through Port au Prince to find family.  Pere Bruno, who took our $2500, and like Jesus in the small town of Bethsaida, blessed it and it multiplied to feed not 200, not 250 but 300 Haitian families for an entire week.

“And all ate and were filled.” Luke 9:17

I think that’s our calling: to do what Jesus did to bring the gift of life in the midst of disaster. And yes, our supply of compassion is weak and it is temporary stuff and never good enough, but it becomes transformed as Jesus works with us and it becomes all that is needed and more.  That my friends is faith with works alongside….

                But I’ll tell you that the great pain of Haiti lies in the faces of the young men.  As the women and children do all of the work, the men stand idly passing time. There is no work to be had and they watch as the “Blanco’s” walk past.  There is no way to describe the look on their faces.

·         It is part anger and pain as they know that their existence, the food on their plates and the future of their children is dependent on these Americans who come and go from the land of plenty to this stripped land of hunger. 

·         It is part resignation that there will never be more than what is. 

·         And finally, their faces show part quiet acknowledgment and thanks, for the simple truth is that we bring the loaves to be multiplied by Christ. 

Faith, my friends, without works is dead.  If you walk away from any disaster, be it an earthquake, death of a child or even the hungry and lost in Fauquier County with no compassion in your heart… it might as well be as if there was no Christ.

“For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.”

The headlines change. Celebrities are having affairs. Someone else got greedy and embezzled money, … but earthquakes still happen. Tsunamis still exist and hunger, thirst and death are very real and very present.  Maybe the earth under your feet didn’t move.  Just maybe you were too busy shopping for the right pair of shoes.  Maybe, just maybe, you don’t care.  Maybe it doesn’t matter to you whether you are 70 miles from hell or 7000 miles… but you need to remember the truth of the Gospel is that we are one.  We are connected.  We are family whether we live in Buckingham Palace or the makeshift tent of a refugee camp in Haiti.

And maybe, seeing the suffering just miles away from our front door, will awaken each one us from the slumber of ignorance and remind each of us of our own self-centeredness and plunge our theology into the deep waters of reality.

Is God sovereign, even as the earth heaves and fires are kindled? God is good.  Is He good, even as the last cries of the dead drift quietly into the silence?  God is great.

We don’t dare ask Cain’s ancient question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” or the Pharisees question: “Who is my neighbor?” Because we know the answer. Our lives have long been intertwined sometimes for better, often for worse, with those of the people of Haiti.  We don’t ask because we don’t want to be held responsible. 

Hear again the words of the prophet Isaiah:

“Is this not the fast that I choose:

To loose the bonds of injustice,

To undo the thongs of the yoke,

To let the oppressed go free,

And to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house…

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn.”

Isaiah 58:6-7

I didn’t ask to be born here with all the privileges and opportunities that brings nor did the Haitians ask to be born there with all the burden of two centuries of exploitation, but we are interdependent human beings and the ills of one affect us all. Whether it’s the unemployed auto worker who has lost his health insurance or the child pulled from the rubble in Port-au-Prince, he or she is my brother, my sister, my neighbor. I have not so much a responsibility as a privilege and an opportunity to act as Jesus’ eyes and hands to bring the gifts God has given in response to the need we see.

                The nine of us quickly packed our bags under the hurried tone of our friends in the states telling us it was our only safe passage home. With heavy hearts we divided our clothes into the keep and leave piles on our beds.  With steady and conscientious hands, Dad and Chris saw patients till the moment the trucks were started to drive us to the border.  We took final pictures, safely packed our precious passports and handed out the last of our candy to the children of Terrier Rouge. We were going home. 

And as I walked from the clinic to the school for the last time, I was met in the dirt filled road by children. Once again they were beating their makeshift drums, dancing in the streets, singing songs and saying goodbye. They yelled in their tiny Haitian voices “Carrie… Carrie” and I joined them, dancing in the streets, holding hands and praising God that

“though the earth will shake and the mountains and the hills will tremble and fall into the sea…”

God will always be.

 Right there, in what seems to many like a God forsaken land,  God is present, He is alive and He dances in the streets with hungry children and crazy white American pastors from Warrenton, Virginia.  It is God that invites you to join the dance as well.  We are one… we are connected. They are as much a part of us as we are of them. 

Each one of the nine of us left a piece of ourselves in the town of Terrier Rouge, Haiti. I don’t believe that God intended for any of us to come home whole.  For when their hearts cried out in grief for the hell that was a mere 70 miles away, we cried alongside.  That is who we are called to be, to loose the bonds of injustice, to multiply the loaves and feed the hungry and know that we are all, each and everyone of us, God’s children. We are one.