Nou pa janm bliye

It's a reflective kind of day. Four years ago at 4:53 the lives of all my Haitians friends were forever changed with the most devastating earthquake to ever shake Haiti. I wasn't in Haiti that day, but remember getting home from work and turning on the news and seeing the devastation. I was in shock. I was preparing to go with my church to Haiti for the first time in only a few short weeks. I watched and mourned alongside the Haitian people I hadn't even met yet.

A few weeks later I came to Haiti. It was a trip that forever changed my life. I met all these amazing, strong, and resilient Haitians who have taught me what it means to have hope. Hope for change, hope in God making beauty from ashes, hope for a future when everything around them seemed so bleak. One of our last nights on that trip we had supper with our translators, all college students from Port-au-Prince who had survived the earthquake. Story after story of losing a wife, children, girlfriends, sisters, brothers, classmates, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends were told around our supper table. We wept together. But we didn't end the night crying. We ended the night dancing and laughing and being thankful that our family had expanded to include these new friends. It was a night I will truly never forget.

And now four years later I'm blessed to be able to call this country my home. The friends I made on that first trip to Haiti are still a part of my life and a part of my family. I get to see them, not as often as I'd like, and be a part of their life on this island. My Haitian family has expanded to include many others in Port-Au-Prince. I've heard even more stories of survival, loss, destruction, and hope. 

The more I come to love this country that has so lovingly welcomed me the more I grieve Jan. 12, 2010. My heart is so heavy today for my friends who lost so much that day. I wept as I held sweet Wadnaika whose mother died saving her and her four other siblings. I weep because Wadnaika was so young when the earthquake happen I doubt she'll remember her mother. But I do not grieve as one who has no hope. Today at church we had a special church service with testimonies, worship, and prayer for this beautiful country. My friend Ruth lead us in singing "God of This City" which she was singing on a roof the day of the earthquake. As we sang as a church congregation with tears in our eyes and our hands raised, God used the lyrics to remind me of truth. Greater things are still to come in this city, in this country, and in this world. I'm thankful to be able to be a witness of how God is restoring Haiti. Ayiit pap peri! 

"You're the God of this City 

You're the King of these people 
You're the Lord of this nation 
You are 

You're the Light in this darkness 
You're the Hope to the hopeless 
You're the Peace to the restless 
You are 

There is no one like our God 
There is no one like our God 

For greater things have yet to come 
And greater things are still to be done in this City 
Greater thing have yet to come 
And greater things are still to be done here."