Seventh Anniversary of Haiti 2010 Earthquake

                                 A woman prays during mass in Port-Au-Prince on the 7th anniversary of the earthquake

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the devastating earthquake that struck near Port-Au-Prince.
The earthquake hit at 4:53 PM  leveling the capital including most of the governmental buildings and airport.  Because of the poor construction and lack of safety equipment as a result of their grinding poverty, almost 250,000 people lost their lives.
    A similar strength earthquake in a developed country would have caused a fraction of the death and destruction.  The Church I had done medical clinics in for years before was almost completely destroyed and our pastor-friend Rev. Bienne L' Amerique lost his life.  The mission house we stayed at numerous times before was completely leveled and our beloved host and sister in Christ, Se-Tata also died. Her remains are buried in the foundations of the new house that has been built on the site.
The archbishop died in the ruins of the Cathedral in downtown PAP.
    Our team went down a month and a half later and the devastation was still very apparent. The streets contained rubble and most people in the city were living in tarps and flimsy tents provided by USAID.  Sadly, five years after the earthquake I noted many families still living in the wind-torn tarps
in mud puddles outside the rubble of their former concrete hovels.
    It is safe to say that most of the aid promised to the patients never materialized nor made it to the poorest of poor who most needed it. We did note that the capital streets were crowded with new SUV's and trucks purchased by the NGO's who were the beneficiaries of much of the funds that went to Port-Au-Prince.  A few months after the earthquake another disaster followed in the form of cholera brought by UN troops attempting to help the disaster.
   My wife and I still keep a piece of rubble from the earthquake on our window sill to remind us to pray for the people in Haiti .  Seven years later, let's keep our Haitian brothers and sisters in our prayers.

500 Year Anniversary of the Reformation and Beer

Already the web is being filled with sites proclaiming the goodness of Martin Luther in breaking from the Church and causing one of the largest schisms in the Body of Christ.

He had this to say about his influence: “I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends . . . the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing. The Word did it all.”


I would like to correct Martin here and say that it was not the Word which weakened the papacy. It was Luther's novel interpretations of "the word" essentially making it say what he wanted it to  so as  to support his novel doctrines. Remember that pesky scripture from Revelation about adding to or subtracting from the word? Luther did both, removing several books from the canon as well as adding to scripture to make it more in line with his new teachings.  I do wonder how many Wittenberg beers he had quaffed when he wrote this?



"If your Papist annoys you with the word ('alone' - Rom. 3:28), tell him straightway, Dr. Martin Luther will have it so:  Papist and ass are one and the same thing. Whoever will not have my translation, let him give it the go-by: the devil's thanks to him who censures it without my will and knowledge.  Luther will have it so, and he is a doctor above all the doctors in Popedom.", from J. Dollinger, La Reforme et les resultants quelle a produits. (Trans. E. Perrot, Paris, Gaume, 1848-49), Vol III, pg. 138.