Unleashing prayer

Too many religious folk use natural disasters as a way of spouting off about God’s wrath and judgment on “those people” and are content to leave it at that.

While the divine reasons behind a tragedy may be inscrutable, what is demanded of us as humans is clear as day. Prayer, yes. But the real power of prayer is unleashed only when linked with compassionate and urgent action.

I wrote about one of my favorite aid agencies – Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) – before here, and am supporting them again in the wake of Haiti’s devastating earthquake.

We don’t have a TV/cable connection at home by choice, but simply reading the news on the Internet has been heartbreaking. We talk about the “Big One” a lot in San Francisco, so seeing a flattened city and thousands of people killed hits very close to home.

Seeing Haitians experience “the Big One” put my life in perspective, making me realize once again how very blessed I am to live in safety, security, and with access to so much. It also reminded me how quickly all that can vanish.

The fact is, if you have safety and security, you live in luxury unknown to most people in this world. And that makes it even more important for us to give back as much as we can, while we can.

Imagine your hometown destroyed and people around the world reading about it. What would you hope their response would be?

Please pray and please help today – even a small donation has a BIG impact.

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Related:

Support Doctors without Borders now.

Partners in Health is also a great organization, which has been working in Haiti for over 20 years.

NYT: Aid workers scramble amid Haiti’s chaos: ‘About 800 people from Doctors Without Borders, the medical aid group, were already in Haiti when the quake struck. They treated more than 600 patients in various locations for fractures and other injuries and for burns, many of them caused by domestic cooking-gas containers that exploded as buildings collapsed.’

Here is a list of other aid agencies that are already on the ground and helping in Haiti. In the days to come, medical aid and access clean water and shelter will be crucial.

Global Voices‘ coverage of the Haiti earthquake