Many of us dropped our jaws while staring at a television, some of us attended prayer services and gave abundantly, and people around the globe devoted themselves to finding ways to help.
But nearly 2,000 miles away, Rev. Don Gotham and 16 other UMC brothers and sisters from Michigan simply lived through one of the most devastating earthquakes of our time — with their faith in tact and much more perspective than what can be found in The USA Today or on CNN.com.
A mission trip that arrived to Haiti on New Year’s Day was scheduled to return home Jan. 14, but just 15 hours before the mission team was scheduled to get on a plane a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit in Port-Au-Prince, about 120 miles east of where the crew was working in Jeremie.
While all of the crewmembers were unharmed, and eventually they returned home safely on Jan. 19 through the help and persistence of many people whose names they will never know, well over 200,000 people have now been declared dead from the tragedy, and these servants’ lives will never be quite the same.
Gotham wept with a Haitian paint foreman who lost his only sister in the wreckage and the entire crew consoled people who walked in and out of the guest house they called their residence, as stories of agony and fright rolled off their lips.
But despite that, and the fact they experienced somewhat strained communications with family and friends for a few days, the team chooses to focus on the “amazing spirit” of the Haitian people and all of the good that is left to do in a reeling country.
