By Stacey Ayars

I saw and experienced enough during my 48 hours in Port-au-Prince to share with you an abundance of hope. But this afternoon I met with Lucner, who is just back from a week of working with our students to evangelize the area of Diquini (right outside of Port, on a mountain top) alongside of OMS's makeshift medical clinic. I had sent our camera with him, and while Lily napped this afternoon, I just clicked through the photos...and SAW salvation with my eyes. 

I felt my eyes viewing holy ground, and quite unexpectedly found my chin dripping tears...ah, beloved, what beauty! Sunday morning, we stumbled upon all kinds of church. Many services were taking place in front of ruins that must have been the normal place of worship. Others, like this huge service, were led outdoors for fear of another quake. Despite the circumstances, people were in their Sunday best, and the area surrounding the church was full of curious onlookers, men like this one...searching.

But it wasn't just Sunday morning that the streets were full of praise. It was as if a new song was on the lips of Port-au-Prince. "Let him who has breath praise the Lord," the Bible says, and everywhere I went people were following the command, those who loved Him and those who barely believed He existed. Everyone I met quickly attributed their survival as a "Grace of God", and all spoke of The Mighty Hand who alone can shake the earth, who alone can save or destroy, who alone saw fit to give them their breath, who alone merited their praise.

I had expected to find some angry, or some leaving their survival up to chance, but I found not ONE. Even the man that blamed the earthquake on "something bad the earth had eaten, and it gave the earth a stomachache, and its stomach keeps rumbling" praised the Lord in his next breath that the Lord had not allowed this stomachache to kill him. Every evening from around 7 pm until 10 pm, the tent village right next to the Villa radiated praise music, this familiar upbeat chorus ringing out in perfect harmony over and over and over as I laid awake...
Gloire pou Bondje Glory for God
Adoration pou Bondje Adoration for God
Chak moman pou Bondje Every moment for God
Li merite louange He deserves praise

This severed family was no exception. Vilnord and I had worked together building an orphanage many years ago. I must have been 19, and while living in Port I frequently worked alongside him sifting sand, laying block, pouring cement, etc. When I arrived at CSI's guesthouse Sunday afternoon to check on Greg and Cathie, I was thrilled to see him again in the courtyard after so many years, and shocked that he remembered me.

As we spoke, I noticed a little canopy set up on the front walk of the crumbled guest house, and quickly realized that this was now his home. I knew the moment I looked into his wife's eyes that their home was not their only loss. Her carefree braids twisting off in every direction did nothing to disguise her heart and as obvious as her joy was to reconnect, her smile never reached her eyes.

"Tell me," I said, wanting to know...not wanting to know.

"It was the late afternoon," Vilnord began, "and we were all home, and everyone was sitting in front of the house, except for Emmanuela. She had just finished her homework, and was so tired, and her mother told her to go rest on her bed for a while.

"Then the house, it began to spin and spin, and we could not see well or understand, and we all screamed and we ran everywhere. I looked in the house for Emmanuela, as everything was falling, and I saw her in her room running to me, running out. And then I saw the house fall upon her. I saw it bury her, and there was nothing I could do."

Mother began to rock herself forward and backward on her borrowed mat, legs dejectedly spread out before her, as if she was rocking her lost daughter.

"When the world stopped spinning, spinning" he said, shaking his arms to show me the force, "we tried to dig her out, we tried to get her. But there was no noise, she did not call out. She is dead. She was 14. Do you want to see her?" he asked earnestly, his boys quickly jumping up and digging two photos from a small pile of belongings. She looked just like the them. And she looked 14...sassy, young, bright. 

"Tell me about her," I asked, and for a few happy minutes everyone chimed in their favorite things about Emmanuela. She was smart, and did the best in school of all of them. She always made them laugh. She never let go of anything you told her. She made you keep every promise She always borrowed her sisters clothes without asking.

"One you do not forget," broken mother said quietly, finishing the list.

"Did she know the Lord?" I asked quietly after a moment, and mother's worn hands raised immediately to the sky, her fingers waving back and forth like palm leaves in the silent wind.

"YES," she said firmly, talking to the Lord now and forgetting about me.

"Praise You Lord," she whispered. "Praise You Lord. You have saved me, you have saved us, you have saved her."

All was forgotten, and in an instant the borrowed tarp home became His sanctuary. Ten brown hands and two white lifted their praises together, deeply aware that one among us was missing, but overwhelmed by His love and salvation nonetheless. Again, I knew myself to be in one of life's most beautiful moments, and I praised Him. I lifted all I had seen that day, and praised Him with a heart entirely full of His joy.

If He had never done anything else in my life since the moment He offered His son for my salvation, it would be enough. Their daughter, their sister, was dead. Buried before their eyes in an instant while taking a break from homework. But He had saved Emmanuela, and it was more than enough for them. And that, dear ones, is HOPE. That is the beauty rising up from the ashes of Port-au-Prince. He already saved Haiti.

--excerpt from Matt and Stacey Ayars' blog