Two days ago my phone rang mid-afternoon and I saw it was my dear Haitian colleague that I've written about on here before. I haven't talked to her since the spring (she was traveling, then I was traveling), so I was really excited to see that she had called. But I didn't answer my phone, because I was having a poor-me day and feeling truly cruddy and just didn't want to talk to anyone. Part of the problem was that I was truly feeling bad and so exhausted I could hardly construct a sentence (this infernal chronic fatigue is still with me), but part of the problem was that I was, as I said, trapped in my little poor-me world and not really interested in leaving it enough to engage with someone else.
So finally the next morning (yesterday) I listened to the voicemail my friend had left. She had just returned from 2 weeks of disaster relief work in Haiti, said she had seen worse things than she had ever seen in her life (like truckloads of dead babies), and was desperately in need of prayer, and felt like I was the one person she could call to ask for prayer. Of course I called her back right away and we made plans to meet up later in the day (yesterday). And I was heartbroken and sickened to hear about what is happening in Haiti, and in response to my friend's apologies every 5 minutes for being such a downer, just kept saying, "I'm so glad you told me."
Because really, I should know that nearly a million people in Haiti are displaced, homeless, most without basic food/water/shelter, many standing in 3 or 4 feet of water, with infected wounds festering in that disgusting water, and no place to go. Why had I not known? (Come on, I've been to Haiti, I basically know how bad things always are there, and I knew when I heard that short NPR clip that things were probably really, really bad.) I guess I chose not to know because I was wrapped up in my own life and issues, and didn't want to carry the burden of knowing about and praying for a desperate situation. Obviously none of us can know about all the horrible things going on around the world-- none of us can carry that much burden, and God doesn't intend us to. But I think He did want me to pray for Haiti, especially two days ago when my friend called to ask for prayer and I didn't answer because I was too wrapped up in my own stuff. How many opportunities do I miss because I am too wrapped up in myself?
I felt majorly convicted, especially by that verse in I Peter: "therefore be clear-minded and self-controlled so you can pray."
Also by that amazingly hard passage from John that popped up in yesterday's Daily Office (I am now listening to Morning Prayer on my iPod every morning, good stuff-- the Daily Office is daily scripture readings and prayers from the Anglicant Book of Common Prayer)-- "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
If you want to see some pictures of Haiti (from Partners in Health, the organization with which my friend works) go here.
