Article submitted by Candy Rieger, Field Coordinator in Haiti
After three weeks sleeping in a tent, set up on rocks no less, I have found my bed nearly swallows me! I came to like my little house and the sounds of the night in Haiti, and I learned to conform rather than fight those little rocks. I was grateful for them during nights of rain when I considered the alternative of mud!
I can’t say it was guilt, but a sure discomfort during those nights of rain. All around me were old people, babies, whole families scrunched together under rags or sheets of cardboard or tin, some under sheets or plaited palm fronds. I knew as certainly as I was dry, they were not. We can’t change the discomforts of others very often, and yet I know I would, you would, if possible. It made me think of Jesus…He cares. Very often change is not possible in the overall plan of our Father, and yet I know if we care, how much more does He. Good to remember on those nights that these times are passing away and one day will be no more. But, what can I change? What does Jesus want to do through me?
My first response is always HOPE. One unchanging fact in my time abroad has been the truth of Hope Comes Walking. Jesus came in flesh; Jesus still comes in flesh…yours and mine! And He is our Living Hope. Led by Him, I believe Hope is the shape of my footprint.
You maybe oversaturated with photos from Haiti, the mountains of destruction, the mind boggling statistics of death, injury, homelessness. I finally stopped 
taking photos, the camera was so limiting. I have memories that will never fade. A few stand out to me: a 3 or 4 story building had collapsed to a flat-surfaced table-like pile maybe 4 to 5 feet high. Toward the back there was a bit of building still erect, though not completely. A young man who must have been about 20 years of age was standing on top of the compactly layered cement rubble. In his hand he had a sledge hammer. One man and a hammer in almost machine-like rhythm, taking down this now useless pile of cement. And I saw more like him, standing atop their un-creations…rebar jutting out, cement crust clinging here and there…concrete lace to the eye. Made in the image of God…these men and women…alive and moving toward tomorrow.
Another image was of two houses, symbolic of so many others. At one time a lovely two-story home sat side-by-side with a small one-story home that had a pretty entryway and porch decorated with beautiful flowers. Somehow in the space of 35 seconds, one story disappeared.
And this is the closest I can come to understanding the terror of January 12: all the destruction, and it’s massive, all the loss of life and the broken families, the roads ripped apart, the coastline changed forever — this all happened in the span of 35 seconds. I am held speechless and my imagination toward understanding is frozen.
Some children told me of how they are afraid at night when they feel the tremors. Many people at the Wesleyan clinic suffered from stress-triggered ailments and insomnia. I had a grown man ask me why I wasn’t afraid of the earthquake. A lady who came to learn a little English asked me how she could answer her neighbors in the street who said “I’m afraid”. I sat in a restaurant last Saturday afternoon and found myself visibly disturbed by the sound of a large door slamming. That ol’ earthquake has left a footprint, too, but we have the sure promise of a God, very present with us. I found myself just stomping all over those fear-filled tracks with the Truth. Fear can call out and we may hear it’s haunting voice, may feel it’s tremors, but it cannot control, need not control, one whose hope is in God.