Captain Crunch

"Please Pray!"

I sent out the desperate message when I first heard of this disease that was killing these beautiful people I have fallen in love with.

"As if that's gonna help"

"or you could or help with infrastructure development, job creation, eradication of diseases, and recreating a stable democracy there..."

The few sarcastic replies I recieved echoed incessantly in my mind and cut me deep to the core of my faith and my spirit. All I believed in was coming to the crunch. People are dying of a preventable disease and I'm sitting here...praying. People are living in squalor and poverty and I'm looking them in their eyes and telling them "Jesus loves you, he cares about every need". Is praying really going to help? Is this really addressing the deepest needs of these people? Is God really the only solution for Haiti?

Is Jesus really the only Way, Truth and Life?

I knew it was true. I had the "good Christian" answers all stored up for this rainy day. I could quote scriptures and relay information that explained this situation: "This isn't a battle against flesh and blood", I would say. But people were dying. That's about as fleshy and bloody as you can get. But I still prayed because I "knew" it was the right thing to do. I knew in my head, but still that voices nagged and nagged "as if praying's going to help", "why are you teaching them about Jesus when you could 'help with infrastructure development, job creation, eradication of diseases, and recreating a stable democracy' "

Oh yeah, we've been doing all of that as well. To the point of exhaustion. Food, water, clothes, building, etc. For 3 weeks before cholera came on the scene. YWAM St Marc has done more than the government probably ever has for the people. So I understand that faith and acts must go hand in hand. But I felt like my hand of faith was growing limp and weak.

I was wrestling with this confusion constantly up until the Saturday I wrote about in my previous blog. We went out to distribute water! YES! Excitement! Purpose! Physical results! Finally, I thought, doing something that's really going to make a difference! Well...water distribution very quickly lost it's glamour. It wasn't really the heat, dust, mud, heat, waiting, heat, sweat, heat and thirst that caused me to loose steam. That really didn't bother me much. It was the angry, vicious, ungrateful, greedy, manipulative, grabbing hands and faces that bothered me. It was the healthy taking advantage of the sick so they could get more water. The young men stealing water from old frail women. The strong overpowering the weak. The fists and machetes. It wasn't even just desperation, every time we do any kind of distribution, even giving out pieces of paper...this madness takes over. It's an unquenchable thirst. Like pouring into a bottomless hole. Many only seem to know two words of English: "Give me". "Ay, you. Gi me dolla. Ay, you. Gi me dlo (water)". And we give and give and give and give. They are never grateful. They are never satisfied and fulfilled. They still don't understand they are loved.

It's exhausting. Disappointing. Lying in bed at the end of that day, I was broken.

But, as They say - there's beauty in the breakdown. So much beauty, it's exhilarating.

The breakdown will have to wait for the next blog.

I'm really excited to write it. I hope you are excited to read it.

LOVE YOU!

Kerri.

PS

And I can now say with complete confidence and wonder...please pray! I shall explain sooooon xoxo