We're still living our lives.

People in Port-au-Prince are still struggling for theirs.

I talked to my dad again yesterday.

The thing that stood out to me the most about our conversation was what he told me about the mass grave.

Several years ago, I spent a couple weeks in a village between Port-au-Prince and Saint Ard (where my family's mission is), called Titanyen.

That's where the mass grave is.

This village where I met some of my closest friends is now the site of a mass grave.

They're taking all the unidentified bodies there by dumptruck.

I can't imagine how it would feel to know that when you died, your body would be unceremoniously placed in a dumptruck among hundreds of others and deposited into a landfill.

photo credit: REUTERS

A family friend who's currently living in Indianapolis received word a few days ago that his entire family was killed in the earthquake. Unless he was able to go to Port-au-Prince immediately to identify them, they would be placed in the mass grave in Titanyen.

But he couldn't go. He doesn't have the means to fly down to Haiti on a moment's notice.

And even if he had been able to get there, where would he have stayed? His entire family is dead.

He had no choice but to allow his parents', siblings', and cousins' bodies to be taken to a virtual landfill.

My youngest brother had a relatively major surgery a month ago.

Yesterday, my dad talked to his best friend in Haiti on the phone. The first thing his friend, Jean-Marie, said, was, "How's Mitch doing since his surgery? We've been praying for him."

His entire world is literally falling apart, and he's concerning himself with the well-being of a spoiled American kid.

There's something amazing about the Haitian people.

A Haitian friend of mine said this the other day:

"Martin Luther said 'Christ plus nothing equals everything'. I guess we have everything."

"Tout sa ki fet si se pou pou yon byen se pou mal tout bagay nan menw." --Rebecca Jean

Translation: All that has happened, good or bad, is in Your hands.

Sunday thoughts.

Today's sermon was about God's sovereignty.

Not really.

It was about Acts 20.

But you know how sometimes God can speak through totally unrelated things to tell you what He wants you to hear?

Today was one of those days.

I still have a lot of unanswered questions about the devastation in Haiti. I still can't understand it. Probably never will. But God wanted me to know today that He has it all under control. He has the entire world in his grip.

I couldn't focus on the sermon. I kept having random Bible verses come into my head.

There were two that wouldn't leave me alone:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. [Proverbs 3:5]

Be still and know that I am God. [Psalm 46:10]

I still don't know why this is happening, or why it's happening in the country I love more than any other. But I do know that what seems to be chaos is actually under complete control.

It's so easy for me to overlook the fact that this world is a fleeting moment.

photo credit: dailymail.co.uk

"When the visible world of concrete and computers seem to be the real world--I lose touch and have my doubts." --Wm. Paul Young, The Shack

Haiti stuff.

It's all sinking in. I'm discovering that life must go on.

While it's important to continue to pray and help as we can, it's not fruitful to dwell on what we cannot control in a country we aren't currently in.

There are issues that will result in longterm problems: things like disease caused by decaying bodies, lack of food and water (although when is that not a problem in Haiti?), and the country's financial inability to repair what was destroyed.

If anything, this has raised awareness that Haiti is a place in need of help, not just now, but always.

photo credit: Troy Livesay

Some responses that I've found helpful:

A friend's band who's worked closely with a missionary in northern Haiti.

A 17-year-old family friend who lives in a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

An American family who lives in Port-au-Prince.

A friend's facebook status that I really appreciate.

View of the destruction from a photographer friend's perspective.

Maybe more later? Not sure yet.

Bondye konnen tout bagay.

Bondye komprann tout bagay.

a second attempt at processing.

My brain is full.

My heart is saturated.

My eyes are overwhelmed.

but somehow I can't stop watching videos on cnn.com

It's one of those things where you want to stop watching, but you can't.

I talked with my dad on the phone tonight. My dad is a rock.

Tonight he was weak. Spent. Empty.

People rely on him for answers. They come to him for help.

Now he has no answers. Today he doesn't have a way to help.

He was telling me about the interviews he's doing.

There were a couple for newspapers today.

Tomorrow he's getting called by some news stations.

Then there's Samaritan's Purse, and he's working on a press release with one of Indiana's senators.

He's being interviewed about the very thing that's draining the life from him.

He's forced to think about it. Talk about it. Provide insight on it.

All day long.

No wonder he's emotionless.

On a more practical level, a lot of people are asking about my family's friends in Haiti.

Most of the people we know are safe, although there are still several people we've yet to hear from.

(but no news is good news, right?)

Our hospital doesn't seem to be damaged, aside from relatively minor things such as shelving being overturned, things falling off the walls, and equipment being damaged.

We haven't heard from any of our hospital's staff, although we've heard that the neighborhoods where they live were completely demolished.

And I think that's all I know.

I'm still not sure how to understand it all.

trying to process.

Maybe I'll start blogging again.

I've tried journaling.

It's nice, but I have trouble writing for myself. I need to know there's the potential for an audience. Maybe it's the ESFP in me?

Yesterday afternoon I got a text from my best friend from Haiti. It was really choppy. Really unlike her. She's usually so composed. [you kind of have to be if you've grown up in Haiti.]

It said, "A 7.0 earthquake just hit Haiti. My family is all okay, but please be praying for them and those in the very structurally unsafe surroundings."

Ok yeah, fine. Earthquakes happen all the time. Whatever, nbd.

I guess I didn't realize that 7.0 was a sort of ridiculous number.

I guess I didn't realize that the epicenter was only 20 miles from my family's place.

I guess I didn't realize that there would be an estimated 100,000 dead.

I guess I didn't realize that this would be of a similar magnitude, globally speaking, to the World Trade Center incident on September 11, 2001.

except 30 times as many people died.

And now there's nobody to place the blame on.

There's not a scapegoat this time.

How could this happen in a place where there's no hope for them to ever fully recover from such a blow? They don't have a system set up that's capable of cleaning any of this up.

There are no bulldozers.

No morgues.

No hospitals.

The news reporters can't understand it. They say the country is in turmoil, that there are people lying on the side of the road. That's normal in Port-au-Prince. But this devastation is far worse than that.

This country won't recover.

They were down for the count already. They can't just bounce back. They don't have the resources to.

I can't describe in words how painful it is to know there's absolutely nothing I can do to help. My brain is in Port-au-Prince. My body is in Nashville. The disconnect between the two is almost unbearable.

All I know to do is pray.