If Helping Haiti is Wrong . . . I Don't Wanna Be Right!

"On any given day, the one thing you can always count on every time you step foot outside of your home is to have to listen to someone saying something really STUPID." -- My twin sister

She sounds so negative, doesn't she? LOL (But I promise you, she's not. She's just really really blunt and I think this is one of the funniest quotes I've ever heard from her outside of the time we went for a walk early one day and she's tipping her hat to some drunkards out on their porches with "Drunk in the mernin to ye!") Either way, I think about my sister's quote when I step outside of the house and it takes the edge off of some of the things that people say.

Onto the topic at hand. I watched this video on Black Fire, White Fire last week (another blog that I absolutely love).

If you don't feel like watching the video, it's a clip of crazy-butt Keith Olbermann laying out who else but Rush Limbaugh for some ignorant stuff he said and Pat Robertson - who'd said that the earthquake in Haiti was God's payback to the Haitian people for selling their souls to the Devil.

Later on while showing the video to a coworker, she made the comment that yes, maybe it is "those people's" fault that they have been hit by a devastating earthquake and yes, maybe they did indeed sell their souls to the devil in the 19th century. And yes, maybe God is punishing them for that.

Now, I work in media and since this tragedy struck, I have had the misfortune of having to look at hours and hours of footage showing bloody and homeless men, women and children as well as piles and piles of dead bodies (all up close). I am not lying when I tell you that the instant she said that, a blood vessel in my brain must have popped, because I had a migraine for like two straight days afterward.

I asked the girl "if this is divine judgement, then what about the Haitian people who have immigrated to other countries? Does moving to another country mean that they are instantly excused from their sin of selling their soul to the devil?"

She said that she didn't know.

I then asked her "if God wanted all of these people to die, then wouldn't our efforts to try to help them go against his wishes?"

"Oh, of course not!" she said.

At the end of the conversation she gave the answer that I was waiting for . . . . God works in mysterious ways. Ding! Ding! Ding! And there we have it folks!!! As Chris Rock would say, That train is NEVER late!!!

Anyway, this ordeal along with so many other human tragedies has given me yet another reason to reflect on how blessed I am to be born in this country and to live the priveliged life that I have lived. Seeing the victims of that earthquake (who look like people that I know and see every day) living in the streets and having to survive under the worst conditions allows me to know that there is no law that says I have to live a pampered life. I can't afford to take every day for granted or think that it's just "those people"who will experience pain, or try to justify someone else's tragedy by saying that they "deserved it." The only thing I can do is to pray for them and try to help them with hopes that others would do the same for me and mine if - God forbid - a tragedy of that magnitude were to affect me. (Ecc. 9:11 . . . if you don't know it, look it up!)


Either way, if you want to donate generic medical supplies (like bandages, alcohol, aspirin) to Haiti, here is an address along with a list of things that are needed. I chose to post this specific website because personally I like to send supplies as opposed to money (I'm paranoid that way).

Medical Supplies for Haiti

That's it yall! Have a great day. :-)