By Dr. John Eby
What can we say in the face of sudden disaster? How do we continue to believe in a good God who is not only cosmic and eternal, but also a God of history? Catastrophes such as the recent earthquake in Haiti — the greatest disaster in that nation’s exceedingly tragic past — certainly shake us to the core, and we quite naturally ask, “why?” That question seems especially poignant as I think of Forde.
Forde, the librarian at the Louverture Cleary School near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was one of the finest Christians I have ever met. His demeanor was so kind that you felt yourself a part of him. He was highly intelligent, and always ready to engage in a friendly but challenging discourse on theology or politics. Forde was one of the victims of the January earthquake; he was trapped alive in rubble for 24 hours, but died while rescuers worked to dig him out.
Forde’s personal integrity and strong sense of morality were exemplary: one day a few years ago, for instance, while we were mixing concrete for a basketball court in the playground being built by the parent organization of the school, the Haitian Project , we ran out of sand at a critical moment. Without the sand, we could not proceed and our time was impossibly short. There was a pile of sand on the vacant property next door where the people in the neighborhood burned their garbage and the kids played soccer. The sand had sat unused for years (it was there long before I started going to Haiti). No one knew whose it was or who even owned the property on which it sat … if anyone owned the property at all. The Americans in charge of the building project decided to use the sand and replace it with a new shipment later that same day, a solution that was not ideal but seemed the only practical solution, and was certainly harmless. As we started to load the wheelbarrows, though, Forde shouted from a distance for us to stop. The project directors explained to him that we needed the sand, it seemed to belong to no one, and that it would be replaced that day with better sand. Forde listened and then said, “No. It isn’t ours. That is not the way we do things at Louverture Cleary.” So we left the pile, ordered sand, waited, and still got the project done on time.
Forde’s integrity, intelligence and his deep Christian faith were an inspiration to me and his colleagues at the school, as well as to the students. We will all miss his gentle heart, his kind attentiveness and his energetic, sophisticated conversations. He leaves a wife and 3-year-old son, a family he adored and was proud to support on his small income.
Forde was an exceptional human being by any measure. But he is only one of tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, whose lives have been cut short by this incredible tragedy. The death and casualty toll from the collapsing buildings is only the beginning: the destruction of hospitals means inadequate care for many who are injured; the loss of homes means people living in conditions even more squalid than before; many of the 20 percent of people who had work before the quake no longer have a business to return to; disease, starvation and thirst are increasing the suffering in that land. I have heard many disaster relief experts say that this is the worst they have ever seen.
Calamity always hits the poor the hardest. These Haitians, who even before the quake struggled daily to find enough food to keep them alive and who were forced to drink water that gives many unending headaches, who faced mudslides and vicious hurricanes, as well as a long history of political instability; these Haitians did not choose to be born on top of a fault-line buried beneath the surface of the earth. They are just there, and we are here.
If God intervenes miraculously in this world, why did he let this happen to these poor people? Is this a sign that God in fact doesn’t work in history? These are tough questions but good ones, and I don’t think there is only one way to answer them. I do believe, though, that it is possible to search for God in all of this mess. I don’t think God causes earthquakes, and He certainly does not do so in order to punish poor people, for whom the Scriptures announce special divine affection.
Forde and the many other wonderful people in the area – most Christians, but some not – did not deserve this. The earth moves and shifts in its own timing, almost as if waking up to stretch a bit. While the quake is beyond our control, the disaster is a human disaster – the result of a multitude of man-made problems for which blame can be distributed liberally to Haitian leadership and social ills, but equally to the racism, colonialism, and greed of countries such as France, Spain, Britain, and the United States. Such a quake would have been far less traumatic in San Francisco. It makes less sense to me to blame this catastrophe on God than to see its roots in human history.
I have great confidence that God works actively for human redemption; that He strives to rescue us from ourselves and help us to find Him in and through each other. I hope and pray that this is a moment of growth for all of us, in which we come to find more clearly that divine spark of love and compassion that roots us so deeply to the rest of humanity. I hope and pray that we all know this not only through the gift of empathy, but that this spark of love drives us to action for the sake of others.
I know many Haitians, and I know that a number of them will through some miracle and their incredible strength of spirit maintain a sense of hope despite what has happened. But I know that hope will be nearly impossible for many of them. This is why our role here in the U.S. is so important. As an acquaintance of mine who has family living in horrible conditions in Gaza said recently, “I have to be the hope for them, because they have none. I have to be the hope.” When those in despair cannot find any foundation for hope, we must take that on ourselves, living by faith that God will bring forth a new and beautiful creation out of chaos. I must act on that faith by knowing that I am one of the instruments he will play in that renovation. And not only I, but all of us – U.S. citizens and Haitians alike – are God’s voices to each other for our mutual and communal renewal. May we be their hope, and may they become ours.
God is, I believe, very active in history; but He’s not a tyrant. Instead, He is a problem-solver, constantly responding to our human fallibility with the patience of a parent determined to persuade us toward greater virtue and with the creativity of an Eternal Being for whom creation and re-creation is an unending act of love.
