But I’m fit and able bodied.  I can shift rubble, carry bags, dig holes, distribute aid, be a dogsbody.  Every fibre in my body wants to go out and physically do something … anything!  Partly that’s because I’m a bloke and as a bloke my instinct is to fix stuff and not think about it.  But partly it’s a gut feel to being a follower of Jesus.  I think He would be in the rubble and the chaos not sitting back thinking how bad it all is.

So, I’ve spent some time trying to find a way to do something … so far I’ve drawn a blank. Seems like the aid agencies want skilled and experienced people but if anyone out there knows how a bloke or blokes can get on a plane and get their sleeves rolled up for a while let me know.  I don’t want to take photos, film stuff, get in the way or make a token effort so that I look all holy.  I want to get my hands dirty, seriously dirty.  And I want to do something.

Luke 4:18 is key.  We mustn’t theorise about good news.  We have to be it as well …

They put the same sort of show on for every major disaster; Oh well. But where was it again? D’you mean that island where the people who started out as a spin-off from our slave trade have been held in poverty for decades by corruption and oppression, and we’ve not done much to help till now? That one? D’you mean the place that’s usefully provided us with really interesting television documentaries and news stories, spiced up by how beautiful the women are supposed to be there? That one? Oh yeah, right.

And which God was it again? D’you mean that God who they thought was the illegitimate son of a teenage peasant girl; that God who chose to start life in an animal feeding trough and just dodged being murdered as a toddler by the government and had to become a refugee—that one? D’you mean that God who the powers that be kept on trying to kill for being too revolutionary, who specialised in making friends with and helping the scum—that one? D’you mean that God who had no home and hardly any possessions and whose friends betrayed or deserted him; that God who was sentenced to death as an innocent man, ripped to shreds by whips then died by being nailed, nude, in public to a piece of wood? That one who said he had to do it all for our sake?  That one?  Oh yeah, right.

So, what does he have to say about the theological view on the Haiti issue? Well, I don’t know first hand—he never said. He wasn’t much of a one for theoretical debates when he was here. The whole thing beats me, really. And it beats me why he would want to get stuck in up to his eyeballs with our mess, anyway.

But I would be willing to guess what he wants his followers to do about the Haitians, now. He wants us to break our hearts and give and pray, and he’d say we should count it a privilege to help, not a duty. And he’ll want some of us to go.

That’s all.