From here:

[Will] Willimon once preached about an encounter he had with the father of a graduating student. The father called his office and exploded over the phone. “I hold you personally responsible for this,” he yelled at Willimon. The father was angry because his graduate-school-bound daughter had decided (in the father’s words) “to throw it all away and go and do mission work in Haiti with the Presbyterian church.” The father screamed, “Isn’t that absurd! She has a bachelor of science degree from Duke University, and she is going to dig ditches in Haiti! I hold you responsible for this!”

Willimon, not easily intimidated, asked him, “Why me?” The father replied, “You ingratiated yourself and filled her with all this religion stuff.” Dr. Willimon was quick to reply, “Sir, weren’t you the one who had her baptized?” “Well, well, well, yes,” the father stumbled. “And didn’t you take her to Sunday school when she was a little girl?” “Well, well, yes.” “And didn’t you allow your daughter to go on those youth group ski trips to Colorado when she was in high school?” “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?” replied the father, becoming more and more aggravated. “Sir,” Willimon concluded, “you are the reason she is throwing it all away. You introduced her to Jesus. Not me!” “But,” said the father, “all we wanted was a Presbyterian.” Willimon replied, “Well, sorry sir, you messed up. You’ve gone and made a disciple.”

–shared by my coworker Craige Borrett in the morning sermon and one of my favorite Willimon stories

The tears streamed down Alix Idrache’s face. In the photograph, the streaks reach almost to the high collar of his gray dress uniform.

The moment, captured by a military photographer Saturday during commencement exercises at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., marked the culmination of a journey that began in 2009, when Idrache came to Maryland from his native Haiti, barely able to speak English.

Now 24, he graduated at the top of his class in physics, was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army, and is headed to Alabama to train as a helicopter pilot.

Read it all and absolutely, positively do not miss the picture.

Most gracious God, by the calling of thy servant James Theodore Holly thou gavest us our first bishop of African-American heritage. In his quest for life and freedom, he led thy people from bondage into a new land and established the Church in Haiti. Grant that, inspired by his testimony, we may overcome our prejudice and honor those whom thou callest from every family, language, people, and nation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Most gracious God, by the calling of thy servant James Theodore Holly thou gavest us our first bishop of African-American heritage. In his quest for life and freedom, he led thy people from bondage into a new land and established the Church in Haiti. Grant that, inspired by his testimony, we may overcome our prejudice and honor those whom thou callest from every family, language, people, and nation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Some dodge the stones and bottles thrown at their tents in the dead of night, others watch helplessly as their tarpaulin shelters, huddled in camps sprawled across the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, are destroyed with knives and sticks.

Rights group Amnesty International has collected dozens of such testimonies from Haitians who have been kicked out of makeshift camps set up by those left homeless by the January 2010 earthquake. Many camp residents have moved out, but just over 320,000 Haitians still live in them.

Read it all.

Almost three years after an earthquake toppled the Roman Catholic and Episcopal cathedrals in Haiti’s capital, visions for their resurrection have started to take shape as officials from both churches begin considering proposals to rebuild them.

A six-member panel led by the dean of the University of Miami’s School of Architecture met this week in South Florida to choose the winner of a design competition that sought ideas for rebuilding the Notre Dame de l’Assomption Cathedral.

Meanwhile, Episcopal Church officials have selected a Virginia-based architectural firm to design a new Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Read it all.

School teacher Darlene Derosier lost her home in the 2010 earthquake that devastated her country. Her husband died a month later after suffering what she said was emotional trauma from the quake. She and her two daughters now live in tents outside Haiti’s capital, surrounded by thousands of others made homeless and desperate by the disaster.

What has helped pull her through all the grief, she said, has been her faith, but not of the Catholic, Protestant or even Voodoo variety that have predominated in this island country. Instead, she has converted to a new religion here, Islam, and built a small neighborhood mosque out of cinderblocks and plywood, where about 60 Muslims pray daily.

Islam has won a growing number of followers in this impoverished country, especially after the catastrophe two years ago that killed about 300,000 people and left millions more homeless.

Read it all.

In the two years since the quake, $4 billion has been spent on reconstruction.

So what did the world get for its money? The answer is, not enough.

Half a million Haitians still live in the large makeshift camps that people fled to when their homes fell down.

The camps are fetid messes of humanity where rapes are common, murders not infrequent and sanitation seriously lacking. These camps aid in the spread of cholera, which still infects about 9,000 people a month.

Read it all.

Church leaders from ecumenical councils in the U.S. and Cuba wrapped up a five-day meeting in Havana on Friday (Dec. 2) with a call for “normalized relations” between the two countries.

“We declare the following shared conviction: that the half century of animosity between our countries must end,” said a joint statement issued by the National Council of Churches and the Council of Churches of Cuba.

Read it all.

As the slow recovery continues in Haiti after last year’s earthquake, there’s a new book out called Haiti after the Earthquake. It’s by the much-admired Paul Farmer, a medical doctor, a professor at the Harvard Medical School, and a cofounder of the humanitarian aid group Partners in Health. For a quarter of a century, Farmer has worked, primarily in Haiti but in other countries, too, to provide good medical care to the poorest of the poor.

Farmer was in Washington this week signing books and talking about what he says are the two big challenges of relief and reconstruction: helping individuals in need, as so many faith-based groups do, and at the same time building up public health, public education, and other systems that help everyone. Farmer spoke as the head of one of the hundreds of aid organizations in Haiti.

Read or watch it all.

Cathédrale St. Trinité, Port-au-Prince, has been a central place of sanctity, sanctuary, and justice since the 1920s. With a seating capacity of about 700, the cathedral was the home of regular worship services, special events, and meetings of national import and refuge for countless Haitians. Just after the earthquake, its grounds were used as a makeshift clinic and temporary residence for hundreds of displaced and wounded Haitians. Located at the corner of Ave. Mgr. Guilloux and Rue Pavée in the center of Port-au-Prince, minutes from some of Haiti’s most important national monuments and historic and governmental buildings, the cathedral invited a widespread Haitian following and regular visits by international travelers.

Read it all.

The sudden arrival of Mr. Duvalier, who ruled Haiti from the time he was 19 until he was forced to flee by mass protests in 1986, threatened to further convulse a country that is struggling to recover from the earthquake, a lingering cholera epidemic, the political uncertainty stemming from last year’s contested presidential election and an epidemic of violent crime.

Mr. Sterlin said he did not know how long Mr. Duvalier, who has been living in exile near Paris, planned to stay in Haiti, or if he planned to meet with Haiti’s president, René Préval. An aide said Mr. Préval was among those surprised by Mr. Duvalier’s arrival.

A friend said that Mr. Duvalier would stay for three or four days, but that he would eventually like to resettle in Haiti. The friend spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not Mr. Duvalier’s official representative.

Read it all.

Caught this one on the morning run–I thought it was fair. Watch it all–KSH.

With shops closed and traffic light, Haitians streamed down the streets in spontaneous processions, women wearing white, holding their children’s hands, men in crisp shirts and ties, the clothes they would wear to church or a funeral.

They went to the ruins of the National Cathedral, to pray the rosary at its front steps. The building is now a gutted, roofless shell. Some worshipers began to weep and shout out as they approached.

At Saint Antoine de Padoue, they held Mass in an alley. “A day nobody can forget, no matter how young, even my son,” said Carline Amazan, who held a young boy’s hand and recalled how people ran naked through streets.

Read it all.

A year after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake reduced Port-au-Prince to rubble, leaving more than 200,000 dead and 1.5 million displaced, questions remain about whether or not recovery is possible, and if so, what that would look like.

Read it all.

There’s rubble in the streets, cholera in the water, anger among the voters – and glimmers of hope in surprising places in Haiti, say Episcopal volunteers.

A team of physicians, nurses and others will be returning to Haiti for the 10th trip this year organized by Episcopalians. The week-long mission, which starts Saturday, will fall on the anniversary of the deadly earthquake that razed much of Port au Prince.

“Haiti is probably in one of the darkest times in its entire history,” said the Rev. Deacon Dave Drachlis of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, who will be returning for his eighth mission this year. “But, believe it or not, there is hope. Hope comes in the presence of people who support our ministries there.”

Read it all.

Much has been damaged by the earthquake that struck Haiti last January. Much has changed for so many people.

But some things remain constant. Joel Sainton will get up each morning prepared to walk for miles, visiting people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He will sit with those who are not feeling well, sing, pray and counsel. If he has money or food to give them, he will. If he needs to refer them to a clinic, he does.

Sainton calls these people his “congregation,” but he has no actual church. Instead, he leads a group called APIA (Association of People Infected and Affected by HIV/AIDS) that serves people who are HIV-positive and those with family members who are living with or have died from the disease. More than 200 of them have registered with his non-governmental organization for moral, spiritual and material support as they deal, mostly in secret, with the illness.

Read it all.

“Haiti has had a rough go of it with hurricanes in 2008, then the earthquake and now cholera,” said Dave Drachlis, a deacon at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Huntsville who has made two trips to Haiti this year. The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, which has a partnership with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, has sent five medical mission teams to Haiti this year and a sixth is on its way.

The Rev. John Fritschner, rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Auburn, and doctors Keith Adkins and Will Meadows from that parish were scheduled to leave for Haiti this weekend.

Last month, the diocese sent a team of clergy wives on a mission trip. They worked at a remote mountain school setting up a lunch program.

Read it all.

Every church in the Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire will receive a visit from a motorcycle gang with a message: Don’t forget Haiti.

The Rev. George Stamm, a retired minister who led both Christ Episcopal Church and St. Simeon’s Episcopal Church in Chippewa Falls, is one of about 15 bikers who will ride from Superior to La Crosse for four days beginning Thursday ”” stopping at all 22 churches in the diocese to benefit Haiti.

Riders prepare to head out from St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Superior at 8 a.m. Thursday and the public is invited to cheer on the riders and pledge their support for the people of Haiti.

Read it all.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wonderful stuff–watch it all.

Saturday, we had the presentation by the Theology Committee and their report “Same Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church.” I was a bit disappointed with the report itself, which was really simply two papers, one from the conservative viewpoint, and one from the progressive viewpoint. While they were good papers, the House of Bishops had asked for the committee to prepare “a” paper, not two. I am quite sure this will be published soon, if it is not available already out there somewhere. Still, it did provoke very good discussion, as did the report of the “Around One Table” results. This was a church wide study on the identity of the Episcopal Church. Saturday night were class dinners, and then our Sabbath began….

Sunday night after dinner we had a fireside chat with the Presiding Bishop. Many topics were covered, and much shared but perhaps the most moving was the talk by Bishop of Haiti, Zache’ Duracin….

Bishop Duracin shared with our group the day of the earthquake. It was so moving to hear his story. He had just left his car and was in his front yard, when the earthquake struck. He watched his house crumble before his eyes, with his wife and two girls still inside it. The girls came crawling out of the rubble just minutes after, basically unharmed, but his wife, although alive was trapped. Her leg was, and is, severely damaged. She is now under care in Tampa, Florida. He reported that his car, the one he had just left before the earthquake, was only unearthed this past Friday. He is a very grateful man, to be here, but also for all you have done, and many across this church….

Read it all.

Did you hear about the Protestant minister who said that Haiti “has been in bondage to the devil for four generations”? No, it wasn’t Pat Robertson but Chavannes Jeune, a popular Evangelical pastor in Haiti who has long crusaded to cleanse his nation of what he believes is an ancestral voodoo curse. It turns out that more than a few Haitians agree with Jeune and Robertson that their nation’s crushing problems are caused by, yes, voodoo.

I know this not because I read it in a newspaper or saw it on TV, but because of a blog. University of Tennessee-Knoxville cultural anthropologist Bertin M. Louis Jr., an expert on Haitian Protestantism, posted an essay exploring this viewpoint on The Immanent Frame, a social scientist group blog devoted to religion, secularism and the public sphere.

Elsewhere on The Immanent Frame, there’s a fascinating piece by Wesleyan University religion professor Elizabeth McAlister touching on how the voodoo worldview affects Haiti’s cultural and political economy. She writes that the widespread belief that events happen because of secret pacts with gods and spirits perpetuates “the idea that real, causal power operates in a hidden realm, and that invisible powers explain material conditions and events.” Though McAlister is largely sympathetic to voodoo practitioners, she acknowledges that any effective attempt to relieve and rebuild Haiti will contend with that social reality.

Read it all.

Did you hear about the Protestant minister who said that Haiti “has been in bondage to the devil for four generations”? No, it wasn’t Pat Robertson but Chavannes Jeune, a popular Evangelical pastor in Haiti who has long crusaded to cleanse his nation of what he believes is an ancestral voodoo curse. It turns out that more than a few Haitians agree with Jeune and Robertson that their nation’s crushing problems are caused by, yes, voodoo.

I know this not because I read it in a newspaper or saw it on TV, but because of a blog. University of Tennessee-Knoxville cultural anthropologist Bertin M. Louis Jr., an expert on Haitian Protestantism, posted an essay exploring this viewpoint on The Immanent Frame, a social scientist group blog devoted to religion, secularism and the public sphere.

Elsewhere on The Immanent Frame, there’s a fascinating piece by Wesleyan University religion professor Elizabeth McAlister touching on how the voodoo worldview affects Haiti’s cultural and political economy. She writes that the widespread belief that events happen because of secret pacts with gods and spirits perpetuates “the idea that real, causal power operates in a hidden realm, and that invisible powers explain material conditions and events.” Though McAlister is largely sympathetic to voodoo practitioners, she acknowledges that any effective attempt to relieve and rebuild Haiti will contend with that social reality.

Read it all.

Each Sunday morning, members of White Stone Church spread photos of the girls’ grinning, impish faces across a folding table in the lobby, then prayed for the day they might join them.

When the churchgoers closed their eyes and bowed their heads, it no longer mattered that 1,400 miles separated them from the girls or that they lived in a Haitian village whose dirt floors and lack of running water were unthinkable in north Knoxville’s quilt of neatly tended subdivisions and fast-food drive-thrus.

They are “Our Girls,” the worshippers told one another.

Over six years, the girls of Coq Chante had come to feel like family. Now, after trips by dozens to Haiti, thousands of dollars raised and spent, and countless hours poring over adoption paperwork, the bond with 19 children from another world felt unbreakable.

Until a Tuesday night in January.

Read it all.

Each Sunday morning, members of White Stone Church spread photos of the girls’ grinning, impish faces across a folding table in the lobby, then prayed for the day they might join them.

When the churchgoers closed their eyes and bowed their heads, it no longer mattered that 1,400 miles separated them from the girls or that they lived in a Haitian village whose dirt floors and lack of running water were unthinkable in north Knoxville’s quilt of neatly tended subdivisions and fast-food drive-thrus.

They are “Our Girls,” the worshippers told one another.

Over six years, the girls of Coq Chante had come to feel like family. Now, after trips by dozens to Haiti, thousands of dollars raised and spent, and countless hours poring over adoption paperwork, the bond with 19 children from another world felt unbreakable.

Until a Tuesday night in January.

Read it all.

When they heard I was going to report in Haiti after the massive earthquake, fifth-graders from Amylynn Robinson’s class asked if I could deliver some messages to any children I’d meet. Their letters included drawings of flowers, hearts and rainbows. And they began simply:

“Hello Haiti, nice to meet you.”

“Dear Buddy … ”

“Hi there, I’m a child as well.”

“Dear friend, I am your friend. I wrote this letter to tell you I care about you.”

The children wrote about their school, Balboa Magnet Elementary, a public school in Northridge, Calif., in Northern Los Angeles County, which was the epicenter of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in 1994. Although these 10-year-olds were not alive then, many say they’ve heard stories about the damage in California. So they were sympathetic to kids coping with the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti…..

This is just a fantastic piece that I caught on the morning run. You really need to do the audio as it is far superior when you hear the children’s voices (about 7 1/3 minutes). And check out which song one of the Haitian children chose to send back to the children in California! Listen to it all–KSH.

When they heard I was going to report in Haiti after the massive earthquake, fifth-graders from Amylynn Robinson’s class asked if I could deliver some messages to any children I’d meet. Their letters included drawings of flowers, hearts and rainbows. And they began simply:

“Hello Haiti, nice to meet you.”

“Dear Buddy … ”

“Hi there, I’m a child as well.”

“Dear friend, I am your friend. I wrote this letter to tell you I care about you.”

The children wrote about their school, Balboa Magnet Elementary, a public school in Northridge, Calif., in Northern Los Angeles County, which was the epicenter of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in 1994. Although these 10-year-olds were not alive then, many say they’ve heard stories about the damage in California. So they were sympathetic to kids coping with the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti…..

This is just a fantastic piece that I caught on the morning run. You really need to do the audio as it is far superior when you hear the children’s voices (about 7 1/3 minutes). And check out which song one of the Haitian children chose to send back to the children in California! Listen to it all–KSH.

Read it carefully and read it all.

People of faith have responded to such disasters in two ways. First they, like Darwin, have attempted to try and understand how such a world can be created by a loving God. While some at the fringes of the church have proclaimed the horror caused by earthquakes and hurricanes as the judgement of God, most Christians see something in the view that the creativity inherent in the world also brings with it risk. So the fault lines which cause devastating earthquakes have also been of immense benefit by providing minerals, oil, and good soil for agriculture. In fact, the 19th century evangelical and friend of Darwin, Asa Gray, argued that evolution’s waste and suffering were necessary for more complex forms of life to emerge in creation.

However, such insights can sound very trite to the person who has lost a loved one or been made homeless. In addition, they don’t provide a full explanation to the extent of suffering, a point which struck Darwin strongly.

It’s here that there has been a second response. Seeing in Jesus, both a God who gives genuine freedom to the Universe and a God of compassion in the face of need, churches have been motivated to be at the forefront of help to those affected by earthquakes despite the unanswered questions of suffering.

Read the whole reflection.

Chile is on a hotspot of sorts for earthquake activity. And so the 8.8-magnitude temblor that shook the region overnight was not a surprise, historically speaking. Nor was it outside the realm of normal, scientists say, even though it comes on the heels of other major earthquakes.

One scientist, however, says that relative to the time period from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, Earth has been more active over the past 15 years or so.

The Chilean earthquake, and the tsunami it spawned, originated on a hot spot known as a subduction zone, where one plate of Earth’s crust dives under another. It’s part of the active “Ring of Fire,” a zone of major crustal plate clashes that surround the Pacific Ocean.

Read it all.