Category: Breaking news

Haitian heartbreak and hope: One story (video)

I posted this on my Christian Post blog a couple of days ago. I now have some video of the hospital referred to in the letter below. I have also learned we may have some Haitian orphans coming to our local community. The NT book of James 1:27 teaches:

Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Let’s do it. Here is the video.

A friend sent me an email from a priest in Haiti who is struggling to respond to the tragic earthquake. 

Hello Friends

After driving by night to Kennedy Airport January 12, and flying to Dominican Republic January 13, Conan and I arrived to Haiti this morning in the helicopter of the President of the Dominican Republic.

Our first tasks were the medical evacuation of one of our American volunteers, the medical evacuation of one of our Cuban doctors, the evacuation of the body if one of our American  visitors. 

The search still continues in the rubble for another missing American volunteer. 

We also had 18 funerals today.

One for John who works at our St Luke program. We miss John very much. He often stopped to at my door to tell me the milestone of his developing baby, which delighted him no end. John ran our computerized language lab. Another was for Johanne’s mother. Joanne is one of the directors of the St Luke program. All the others were of unknown people who were sadly rotting by the wayside.

Other sadnesses,

The death of Immacula, our only physician assistant, who worked at our huge outpatient side of our hospital.  The death of ALL but one of Joseph Ferdinands brothers and sisters, the death of the husband of Jacqueline Gautier as he was visiting a school which fell and all the students (all died), the death of our ex-pequeno Wilfrid Altisme who was in his 5th year of seminary for priesthood. Other stories of deaths of people who are dear to us keep coming in.

We spent the rest of the time managing the countless people with serious and severe wounds, coming to our hospital. We are doing our best for them, under trees and in the parking lot with ever diminishing supplies. We will work throughout the night and beyond. No stores are open, no banks are open. Diesel is running out. Will be out in two days if we don’t find a solution, which will mean no power at all. The hospital is without water since there is some broken line between the well and the water tower.

Structural damages to the hospital seem superficial at first glance, but about half the outer perimeter walls have fallen. The old hospital in Petionville is in ruins, And teams of workers, led by Ferel, and been digging for Molly non stop around the clock.

WE HAVE NO INTERNET. OUR PHONES DO NOT WORK. IF A CALL DOES GET THROUGH WE CAN’T HEAR OR BE HEARD. Robin has internet access through a satellite. I asked her to send this message for me, and to ready my emails and answer them as best she can for now.

Please continue to pray for us. We pray for you too.

Fr Rick Frechette

First things first. This dear man works with Friends of the Orphans in Haiti. You can help him directly by going to their website (friendsoftheorphans.com) and making a donation. He is an MD who runs the hospital there and has given away all of his supplies. In a tragic circumstance, one can turn away from hope or toward it. In the midst of so much heartbreak, Father Rick is choosing hope and we should choose to help. Now would be a good time.

For other helping opportunities, click here.

Haiti: How to help

There are many ways to help but I want to list several here:

Donate $10 to the Red Cross to be charged to your cell phone bill by texting “HAITI” to “90999.” 

  • Contribute online to the Red Cross
  • World Vision
  • Salvation Army
  • Doctors without Borders
  • Friends of the Orphans
  • Find more ways to help through the Center for International Disaster Information. (This website is quite slow, probably due to traffic)

    • My church, the Evangelical Free Church in America has this portal for more information and a way to help.

    I know there are many church groups who are reaching out. Commenters, if you hear of credible, reliable sources and initiatives, please post them.

    And. Pray.

    What Happened Yesterday?

    (What it Might Have Been Like for Victims)

    by David Blakeslee

    I got up. I got dressed. I hugged my children. I called a friend. I went to work. I packed my bag for a prolonged business trip. I went to lunch. I then went to the doctor’s office for a final check on my health and then, to get my teeth cleaned.

    I was traveling for my work to a place where it might be hard to get medical attention. I sat down in the waiting room. I found a magazine, Sports Illustrated, to read. I flipped the pages and I looked around the room. I saw some friends from other parts of the company, smiling and talking to each other. Every few minutes a person left the room and every few minutes a new person came in the room. It was a strange feeling, not knowing all of them, but being bound by similar work and a similar mission.

    I glanced down at my magazine, the Raiders continue to lose and look terrible. The Phillies are behind in the World Series, I know better, they already lost.. Pop…Pop Pop…Pop…Pop. Scream, crash. Pop…Pop…Pop, Pop, Pop. I know the sound. I am on the ground. I look in the direction of the Pop sound, a man with two guns commands the attention of the room. He is dressed like me. He looks like me. I look to others dressed like me, some are groaning, some wailing, some are whimpering, curled up in the corner as he approaches. Pop…Pop…Pop. I am panicked now. While his attention is turned I jump and run farther from him and push a small table down as a barrier. I realize that most of my co-workers have huddled in the far corner with me. Some are escaping through another door and down a hallway. Pop…Pop…Pop…Scream. Whimper. Moan. I know I am alone. I know this uniform he is wearing says I should trust him…I lunge…Pop. Pop Pop Pop.

    This is what it may have been like for many of the victims yesterday at Ft. Hood.

    Many words will be written about the events of yesterday and the overwhelming majority will be about the middle-aged man who knew where to find a group of trusting colleagues and then systematically betrayed them and murdered them. Many “explanations” or hypotheses will be written. Here is one: a narcissist, narcissistically wounded, acts out his wound in the most terrifying and humiliating way on people completely unprepared to defend themselves and trained to trust him. And he enjoys it. For a brief few minutes his subjective feelings of being small and a “victim” are extinguished in a gratifying hail of bullets and moans and death. It goes just the way he planned and he enjoys it.

    Narcissism is rampant in this culture.

    It is time to make it’s victims real, three dimensional. To narrate their motivations, their lives, to interview their friends and family and to hear what obstacles they overcame and how much they loved their country. They are small, unimportant people in this culture of celebrity. But they are deeply loved, deeply loved. And right now, everyone they loved is feeling destroyed.

    Utterly destroyed.

    That is what narcissism can do.

    (I spent the early years of my career at a small Air Force base as the base psychologist. It was humbling to see how hard everyone worked and how devoted to the mission they were. I learned there how many different kinds of people were better than me, stronger than me and kinder than me. For a medical officer to betray his troops is the worst kind of evil).

    –David Blakeslee, Psy.D. is a psychologist in West Linn, Oregon.

    Uganda: The other shoe drops

    According to this article from Ugandan news source, New Vision, a bill was introduced and then tabled in the Ugandan parliament yesterday.

    The bill would make homosexual relations with someone under 18 punishable by the death penalty.

    Here’s more:

    The Bill, entitled the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, also states that anyone who commits the offence of homosexuality will be liable to life imprisonment.

    This was already the case under the current Penal Code Act.

    However, it gives a broader definition of the offence of homosexuality.

    A person charged with the offence will have to undergo a mandatory medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status.

    The bill further states that anybody who “attempts to commit the offence” is liable to imprisonment for seven years.

    “The same applies to anybody who “aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage in acts of homosexuality” or anybody who keeps a house or room for the purpose of homosexuality.

    The bill also proposes stiff sentences for people promoting homosexuality.

    They risk a fine of sh100m or prison sentences of five to seven years.

    This applies to people who produce, publish or distribute pornographic material for purposes of promoting homosexuality, fund or sponsor homosexuality.

    Where the offender is a business or NGO, its certificate of registration will be cancelled and the director will be liable to seven years in prison.

    Failure to disclose the offence within 24 hours of knowledge makes somebody liable to a maximum sh5m fine or imprisonment of up to three years.

    This chilling development was promised by those who promoted the ex-gay conference back in the Spring which featured three Americans, Scott Lively, Don Schmeirer and Caleb Brundidge. Lively backed measures to keep homosexuality illegal at the time.

    This bill would make ex-gay ministry such as promoted by the conference impossible as just knowing about someone who is gay could lead to fines or imprisonment.

    For previous posts, click here.

    Another article on the bill. Boxturtlebulletin has the text of the bill. Here is a plank justifying the harsh measures:

    This legislation further recognizes the fact that same sex attraction is not an innate and immutable characteristic and that people who experience this mental disorder can and have changed to a heterosexual orientation.  It also recognizes that because homosexuals are not born that way, but develop this disorder based on experiences and environmental conditions, it is preventable, especially among young people who are most vulnerable to recruitment into the homosexual lifestyle.

    I don’t think one’s view of etiology matters in the context of freedom. Determined or not, people are free to engage in relationships as adults and of course the state should protect minors. However, it now seems clearer than ever that the ex-gay conference was designed to give the government cover for the line of thinking presented in this bill. All involved in the ex-gay conference presented out-dated, easily falsified information in the Kampala conference. All involved have refused to bring their theories under the scrutiny of science and research. What if the Americans who went to Uganda presented accurate information about homosexuality to the Ugandan authorities? Would the authors of this bill been able to present this inadequate view of etiology unchallenged?

    UPDATE from the BBC:

    Obama: Prince of Peace?

    President Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

    OSLO – The Nobel Committee stunned the world today by awarding US President, Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize.

    Committee chair, Thorbjoern Jagland, said it was kind of a consolation prize since Chicago didn’t win the 2016 Olympic games.

    “We just all felt sorry for Obama,” Jagland said. “He was all sad and stuff, you know, over the Olympic thing, so we thought it would be a nice pick-me-up.”

    Hearing the news, Nobel Laureate, Al Gore said, “What the…? What has he done? At least I invented the Internet.”

    The White House had no comment.

     

    (The second part is lame parody; the first part, strangely, is not.)

    UPDATE: Comedians give the event two thumbs up!

    Best Obama-Nobel Jokes

    October 09, 2009 10:09 AM

    Courtesy of conservative activist Keith Appell:

    Barack Obama’s Teleprompter: Big Guy says Bill Clinton called and was gracious in defeat; offered to fly Kanye West over 4 the Nobel awards ceremony.

    Erick Erickson: Obama is becoming Jimmy Carter faster than Jimmy Carter became Jimmy Carter.

    Ana Marie Cox: Apparently Nobel prizes now being awarded to anyone who is not George Bush.

    Headline over AP analysis by White House correspondent Jennifer Loven: He Won, But For What?

    Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review: I want to buy the world a coke.

    Ezra Klein: Obama also awarded Nobel prize in chemistry. “He’s just got great chemistry,” says Nobel Committee.

    Adam Bromberg, CRC: Nobel Prize Committee must be staffed by out of work comedy writers.

    Kristina Hernandez, CRC: It was the Beer Summit that put Obama over the edge.

    – George Stephanopoulos

    Various Blog Additions:

    Cecil: Miss America was robbed. She was for world peace way before Obama was for it.

    Tony Ramirez: The Cook County Democratic machine ain’t what it used to be. They were supposed to bribe the Olympics Committee.

    Mesquito: Was he, like, the tenth caller or something?

    Ron: I thought I should have won, I haven’t fought with my wife in more than a year.

    US Veteran: Obama Wins Heisman Trophy After Watching Football Game

    Add Your Own!