There has been only one thing on my mind since yesterday afternoon when news of the devastating earthquake hit the media. Haiti! Friends who live on the north coast of this 100 mile wide country felt shaking but experienced no damage. No so the capital, where damage and loss of life is yet to be assessed and bodies are being discovered in the ruins of buildings.

Students at Sonlight Academy, where my friends are, have relatives living in the capital. Here in southern Indiana students at our local university have family in the capital. Everyone I know knows someone who has someone in Haiti. And no news of these folks has gotten out to the outside world. So they wait and wonder, praying for that phone call that will assure them that a family member is safe.

When the Son Center Church was being built on the north coast the bricks were imported from the States. Local bricks are porous, crumbling beneath a trowel. These same kinds of bricks comprised most of the buildings in Port au Prince.

Now countries around the world are rushing to help this impoverished country.

A commentator on the evening news last night said that the country needed to move it the bulldozers and get to work cleaning up the streets. What a glaring stroke of ignorance...Haiti has no bulldozers. They have shovels, brooms, bare hands. They are looking for people not clean streets.

A corrupt government and no infrastructure. How will aid be distributed to those who need it most?

I was struck by the accounts of people in the streets who were praying and asking for help from Jesus. This in a country that has dedicated itself to the religion of voodoo and the worship of spirits.

The photo at the top of my blog is Haiti at sunset.

I have a plane ticket for Haiti in two weeks. To get to my friends on the north coast I will have to fly through the capital. It is the only international airport. It is possible that only humanitarian and military flights will be allowed into the country.

This posting has been very disjointed. Random thoughts that have been swirling around my mind and heart. I don't want people to see the devastation of this small country and think that the people are ignorant or less valuable or, heaven-forbid, deserving of this tragedy.

But always throughout history it is the haves who have stepped out to aid the have-nots. Surely today Haiti is a Have Not Nation.

And that's what I think about it...for now.