Taking A Break From The Regular Humor

I had another blog post all ready to go today but I think I will hold off on it for a few days in light of Haiti. I just had a few things that I really needed to say to you.

I need to say right off the bat that I have not been to Haiti. But I have been to enough third world countries to know, in a general sense, what Haiti is like. And to imagine what would happen if the ground underneath homes and buildings and business started to shake violently. We here in the USA have absolutely no concept of what shaky, “substandard” construction is like. We live in a country where there are building codes and inspectors and building permits and heaven forbid that you even put up a shed in the back yard without the local authorities giving their approval and coming to look at it and measuring it and telling you that it meets accepted building code standards.

In many countries if you want to put up a building, or a house, or a hovel you put it up.

Outside Lima, Peru.
The homes on this hill are all “extra-legal” meaning that someone decided that they wanted to build a house/shack there and did so. Then others decided to follow and eventually there was a community. No real construction codes, different buildings made of varying materials. If the ground started shaking these would all come down.

India would be the same. I visited in buildings where I would not want to be if the earth started to shake violently. They would be down in part or in whole in no time flat. And these places are teaming with people.

All this to say Pray! Pray for the people of Haiti. Pray for the volunteers who are even now making preparations to go and to help. Pray for the people who are right now “boots on the ground” in what may shape up to be one of the largest natural disasters that we have ever known.

If you want someone specific to pray for then pray for Katie and Ben Kilpatrick (<- a link to their blog). Katie is my college roomie’s daughter. She and her new husband have felt the call to serve in Haiti and moved there on Dec. 29, 2009 to teach at a school in Port-au-Prince. We are praising the Lord, who is mighty in all things, that they are safe and unharmed. But the situation is very bad.