Tag Archives: Haiti

Please don’t embarrass yourself

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On January 12 of this year, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. More than 200 thousand people died in the quake and over 1 million were left homeless. The Inter-American Bank estimates that it will take at least 10 years and some $14 billion to rebuild just the capital city of Port au Prince.

At the time I expressed some concern about people focusing too much on Haiti and neglecting other ministries. Lately, however, I’ve come to have a new concern. Apparently people have lost all perspective on this tragedy.

A few weeks ago, a preacher sent a message to a Yahoo group where he expressed his concern that people had paid more attention to the Haiti disaster than they had the Nashville flood. As he complained about the lack of attention, this man wrote, “Is it because the people in Nashville predominantly are not the right color (66.99% white)? Is it because the church is very strong in Nashville, too, and the media as a rule hates the church and those who profess Jesus as their Savior?”

Then last week another Christian leader posted this on Facebook: “So where are allthe “Save the Gulf” concerts? Where are the T.V. benefits withcelebrities and musicians giving heart felt speeches on the poorfishermen, wildlife, beaches, loss of income and sabotaged gulfeconomy? I find it rather strange how these people (including our owngovernment) are so quick to help Haiti and other countries, but sit ontheir tushy for this one! Post if you agree.”

Let me beg each and every one of you: please don’t embarrass yourself! Feel free to say that Nashville deserves more attention. Express concern about the lack of love being shown the Gulf following the BP spill. But please don’t compare these disasters to what happened in Haiti. Definitely do not claim that giving extra attention to Haiti represents racism and/or religious discrimination.

And please, please, please, if you are a Christian, don’t play the “we should help our own country first” card. “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” (Galatians 6:10) No, it doesn’t say “especially those from the same country we are.”

The Haiti disaster was something on the scale we can’t even imagine in most developed countries. For any disaster to compare, it would need to leave an entire country in ruins for years. If that’s not the case, please don’t embarrass yourself, or the rest of us, by making a feeble comparison.

My 3 big concerns about helping Haiti (and other disaster areas)

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Am I the only one who gets a little uncomfortable when a certain type of relief becomes popular? It’s not easy to talk about, because it can make you sound so insensitive. And I’ll confess to having waited a few weeks so as not to distract from the task at hand. But now I want to point out three main concerns I’ve had over the last few weeks, not just about Haiti, but about knee-jerk emergency relief in general.

  1. Everybody and their dog starts raising money. The relief bandwagon gets pretty crowded. Any agency that is remotely connected to relief or the area in question begins collecting funds. Questions about distribution structure, contacts on the ground, etc. get overlooked. We want to help and are willing to give to anyone who says they are going to help.
  2. Inefficiency is permitted in the name of haste. Planning falls by the wayside. We want something done NOW. There is a need for quick response, but does that excuse spending twice as much to get the same thing done?
  3. Good projects lose funding as money is funneled into the emergency bottleneck. Some of these projects are feeding people who will be in dire straits without the aid being provided. They are well-organized, efficient projects, but because they aren’t the latest big thing, they just aren’t as interesting.

Places like Haiti need our help. They need it quickly. But we need to think carefully about the best ways to make our donations do the most good.