“Now I’m not a racist but….  ….   …..  I AM a firm believer in recycling!”

photo by Krissi Carson

This strip combines two frustrations I have.  One, as a SPO worker, is getting catalogs for everybody in the world at the same time.  It’s a LOT of paper and it makes me sad because I know people are just going to throw it away.  It would save money if they just cut down trees and put them directly into landfills.  Ever hear of the internet?

The other thing that frustrates me is that in Christian catalogs, the music section is filled with artists that have literally been around since I was in middle school.  I know there are new artists too, but really Third Day and Newsboys?  You guys can’t clear the way for some new talent?

I realize upon spell-checking this post that I spelled ‘catalog’ wrong in the comic, but it’s too much effort to go back and change it.  Besides, I think ‘catalogue’ is way classier.

EDIT: Upon a quick internet search, it turns out that ‘catalogue’ is not a misspelling, it’s simply an alternate spelling.  Vindication!

photo by Krissi Carson

http://www.bigsandygilmore.com

photo by Krissi Carson

Alternate punchline: “I never thought one person could make THAT many C.S. Lewis puns!”

http://www.bigsandygilmore.com

A couple of weeks before the earthquake, I was at the airport in Port-au-Prince, waiting on a connecting flight which would take me to the northern city of Cap-Haitien, where I grew up. My flight was running a couple of hours late (a common Haitian experience), so I was wandering around the small terminal with a Bible in my hand and nothing to do. A couple of taxi-stand dispatchers noticed the Bible in my hand and upon discovering that I was a seminary student, began to throw some tough questions about the Bible at me. I turned into a portable Bible school for an hour, and I was relishing every moment. During the course of the conversation, I was struck by the spiritual hunger evident in these people, who were “like sheep without a shepherd,” so hungry for the Word of God but untaught and undiscipled.

A few hours later, gazing out the window as the plane traveled north, my heart was saddened by the brown, arid landscape around Port-au-Prince. Haiti is 97% deforested, and many of the mountains bear deep scars from hurricane-related landslides, as well as mining and quarrying that have been carried out without regard for the natural environment. As the plane began to cross the mountains, I felt the Lord impress upon my spirit that the natural landscape matched what had happened to Haiti in the spiritual realm. Centuries of spiritual devastation have left their mark upon the people, and many had perished for lack of knowledge. When storms had come, many had been swept away because they have no spiritual roots.

As the plane crossed into the North, however, I saw rainclouds forming over the mountains, which eventually gave way to a lush, green rain valley. I felt another impression upon my spirit: that God was going to pour out his Spirit upon Haiti, and that it would begin from the North and radiate outwards. I shared this with my church the following Sunday as the conclusion to a sermon out of John 6, which says that Jesus did not come merely to give bread, but to be bread given for the life of the world. In that passage, Jesus says that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have no life in us. I challenged each individual member of our local church to take Jesus seriously, to eat His flesh and blood, to take the Word of God into themselves, and to be prepared to play a role in the harvest that the Lord was bringing to Haiti.

The rest of my time in Haiti was spent assisting two pastors’ conferences–one in the South in Grand-Goave and one in the North in Cap-Haitien. Both conferences were blessed with powerful praise and worship where the manifest presence of God was thick and tangible. During the latter conference, I saw a couple of my childhood friends receive prophetic words over their lives. It was incredibly moving for me to see these friends, who had previously been on the fringes of the church, get set into the church and begin to move into their calling and destiny. On my last Sunday there, as the rain poured down, my church ordained three new elders and rejoiced as one was sent out to plant a new church across town. On Tuesday, I flew back to the U.S., leaving Port-au-Prince at around 11:30 a.m.

At 4:53 later that same day, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake shook Port-au-Prince and changed Haiti’s history forever. In the days and weeks since the earthquake, awash in the flood of news coverage and the grief of seeing a country that one holds so dear suffer such tremendous tragedy, the promise of revival has continued to burn ardently within my heart. Reports of the Haitian church’s gutsiness–American journalists have marveled time and again that Haitian Christians are singing praises, often from atop the ruins of their own churches and homes–have reminded me that God’s promise to us will be fulfilled, even in the midst of such calamity.

A few years ago, a visiting minister from Canada prophesied to our church words from Hosea 2:17, that the Lord was going to open “a door of hope in the valley of trouble.” Though I could not imagine at the time how it would be fulfilled, I am now beginning to understand as that door swings wide to thousands upon thousands of refugees stream into Cap-Haitien, the nation’s second-largest city. My prayer last month was that the church would be ready for them. Already, I am seeing that prayer answered–in my church alone, we have seen people streaming to the altar after every service. Signs and wonders have been prevalent, too–my mom wrote me last week to say that a young man was raised from the dead after convulsing and being pronounced dead during a choir practice. Jesus is the door of hope and many in Haiti are finding him through his church.

Long ago, the prophet Haggai predicted a day when God would “shake all nations.” In that day, the prophet said, the desired of all nations will come (or perhaps, depending on the translation, the people will come to the Desire of All Nations), and the Lord will fill this latter house with a glory far surpassing the former Temple (Hag. 2:7, 9). Some would say that this passage is only about the Second Temple, built and destroyed centuries ago. The author of Hebrews, however, interprets it eschatologically (Heb. 12:28) and thus I believe that we can, too. In these last days, God is shaking the nations and pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh, even upon Haiti. He is bringing the rains of revival to a barren land, and I hope that you will join me in praying, watching, and laboring for and with our brothers and sisters there, because the glory of the latter house in Haiti is going to be an incredible sight to behold.

photo by Krissi Carson