In February, I took a trip to Haiti, as I’ve written about previously, and this is what I saw driving through the streets of Port Au Prince.  It is not for the faint of heart, and I hope it opens our eyes to what happened there.  Fellowship Church is raising funds to help the relief effort there, so if you’re interested, you can donate here.

Chevelle + Port Au Prince = an eye opening video.

There’s something amazing about driving through a place in the back of a pick up truck.

No, I haven’t gone redneck on the world, but driving 65 mph  with the wind blowing on your face in 95 degree weather in February helps you to appreciate the beauty of a place more even then being in the passenger seat.  One of the highlights of my 2003 trip to England was the time I spent driving through Oxford on the top of a double decker bus, and while there was not double decker buses on my trip to Haiti, there was a 1986 Toyota Land Rover with 30,000 miles on it that I consistently traveled in the back of which gave me a chance to appreciate the beautiful landscapes of the demoralized nation.

Now I must confess that I’m not a normal fan of the open air.  In fact, I’d rather have air condition or heat (whichever results in 72 degrees during that time of the year) any day, but of course, when it’s 95 degrees out and you’re in the back of a truck, the temperatures are cooler because of the movement.  So I soak it in, with my co-travelers and some new friends and we drive.

We don’t talk much.  We don’t need to, because we all understand what we’re about to experience, and we all see.  We see mountains on one side.  Beautiful rolling hills with the occasional 15′ by 30′ house that probably holds around 15 people and is partially damaged by the earthquake that happened last week.  Then we drive farther and we see more mountains marked and dotted with small rocks.  One of us ask what those rocks are about and a simple, yet honest answer is given:  They are mass graves holding roughly 200,000 people dead because, as far as much of the population is concerned, God is mad at them.

More silence.

On the other side is the ocean, big and blue and incapable of providing the clean water source that so many of them need to survive at a more livable environment.  But it is beautiful and perfect, especially in the back of a truck where  8 of us stand straight up looking across the countryside and trying not to fall onto the bags of stuff we have brought with us.

The thing I take from this is that despite the horrific things I would see this week, beauty shone brightly.  In the people, in the mountains, in my new friends, and in the wind that helped mask the smell of destruction that occurred the week before.

And then I think about the passage in Matthew 4, quoted by Jesus’ own disciple, Matthew from the OT Scrolls of the prophet Isaiah, “And the people who sat in darkness saw a great light.”  Then I thought that no destruction, no catastrophic event, and no disaster, natural or humanly propagated, is bigger than God.  And when all hope seems lost, He finds a way to take care of His children, bring neighbors from different lands together, and give us unique views of His creation from anywhere…

Even the top of an ’86 Toyota land Cruiser.