The Play by Play

Because I'm sure you want to know:

11:00 pm -Tim throws up. Justus coughs in the background.

12:00 am -Amie throws up. Justus continues coughing and screams out for "dada."

12:30 am -Tim throws up. Amie drags herself to check on Justus. He is burning up with fever and can't breathe through his nose. I take him to the living room where Tim is still hovering over the trashcan. I try to syringe Justus' nose and give him medicine. He is crying and clingy so I take slow deep breaths hoping not to toss my cookies while soothing him back to sleep.

1:00 am -Justus goes back down.

1:30 am -Cookies tossed. Plus the added joy of workings below.

2:15 am -Tag. Tim is it.

2:45 am -Back to Amie. Tim calls from the living room sofa, "I'm sorry I can't help you."

3:15 am -Tim.

4:30 am -I agonize over the garbage can for what I hope will be the last time.


I didn't really think you wanted to know this. But it serves a purpose toward my point.

Most of you know that Haiti is dear to us. Our blog name "ourcrewinhaiti" gives a hint. And while God closed the door on our physical presence there...our hearts could not be anymore intertwined from this distance. The earthquake and the aftermath have become a gauge by which we measure almost every moment of life.

At somewhere around 11:53 pm as my heart rate was increasing and I was breaking with a pre-vomitous sweat, about the time I would normally be giving God the what-for --seriously, do we both have to throw up at the same time? Can't you cut us some slack? What kind of raw deal is this? --all I could think was "One of my best friends on the planet is stepping over dead bodies. This is nothing."

I dread the day that we turn on the evening news and Haiti is no longer the top story, if even in the top three. And yet I know there are those who have already said to themselves "man, I wish they'd put something else on for a change." Even this week, as I turn off the TV or walk away from the computer I think how unfair that I get to tune it out for a time and process what I've seen; unlike those who are in the middle of it with little to no reprieve.

I dread the day that churches stop caring, collecting, or donating. I'm already frustrated by how few churches seemed to interrupt business as usual to spend a significant time in corporate prayer for their brothers and sisters in Haiti.

I am fully aware that life must continue. My mission field was not destroyed by an earthquake and in fact, 26 of them showed up in my yard today. I couldn't be so annoyed by their cluelessness about the world beyond their square mile block that I stopped loving and teaching and ministering to them.

Life goes on. But it is my sincere hope that I be willing to endure a thousand stomach bugs and a thousand sleepless nights if it keeps my heart and prayers centered on those (in Haiti, in the persecuted church, in war-torn Iraq & Afghanistan, etc) who are encountering far worse.