11 days ago I was surreptitiously approached by a friend at the Association of Christian Design Professionals conference and asked if I would be willing to travel to Haiti on short notice. We were just finishing rolling the chapel and throwing spit-balls at the elderly volunteers, so I was a bit preoccupied: "Sure".
Then, backing up, I qualified my statement: "I'll have to check with my three authorities first: God, Maggie and Gaskins," assuming one of them had a good reason to keep me at bay.
I probably should have found a stronger means of disqualification, as I now find myself arriving in a hotel room in Ft Lauderdale and setting a 3:30 am wake-up call to get the team to the airport for 5 days in Carrefour, Haiti, staying at Grace Hospital and designing a 500 person neighborhood. Or, as Duane rumored, attending the grand opening of the new Sandals resort.
I suppose that last comment is insensitive - I have a history of dealing with overwhelming things with mild sarcasm. I'm pretty sure we are about to see the overwhelming, about to enter the unfixable, about to attempt the impossible.
My dad commented the other day, before this trip was sprung, that Haiti is beyond repair. He is likely correct, judging from the last 100-years of support and where the country has floundered. If there is a God-sized project anywhere, it is in Haiti. I am not an overtly spiritual man in my words, although I try to be in my prayers. But it is clear to me from my suburban tower that Haitians need a breakthrough, and that God is the best route for that transition from the oppressed to freedom.
And as well, even though we are preparing a home for 500 people in a 20,000 person tent city, and that seems almost a waste, it isn't. For the people with a new home, a new garden, a new factory and farm and proper outdoor toilets, it will not be a waste.
My prayer is that I am a man after God's own heart in these days ahead.