Storm!

What a storm we had last night.

Deafening thunder, sheeting rain, stunning lightning! I lay in bed with the curtains open. It reminded me of a Hammer House of Horrors movie. I expected to see a dark soaking silhouette appear on the Balcony! Except in my mind it wasn't Boris Karloff, but some Haitian Sugar Cane worker with typical outsized baseball cap, machete and gum boots!!

I did rather let my mind wander.

It wandered to Mark, the flight attendant staying at the hotel. Marks bent as a nine bob note.

I'm reading a book by Tony Campolo at the moment. He talks about a pastor friend of his who supplements his meager earnings by doing funerals no-one else wants to do. He did the funeral of an AIDS victim, attended by about 30 of his gay friends. They sat there, heads bowed, uncomfortable. When it finished, the pastor asked if they expected anything else from the service. A man said ' I like Psalm 23, could you read that' So he did. Then, another said, do you know where it says in the bible something about nothing being able to separate us from the love of God. 'I know where that is' said the pastor, and read it for them.

The point is, These blokes wouldn't dream of going to a church. Because that's where they would be marginalized. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, but Christians can have a pretty good try!
I use the word marginalize a lot when I'm out in DR. Marginalized Haitians. Marginalized poor, marginalized dump dwellers, and yet there are people who are marginalized by Christians.

It just doesn't seem Christian.
It just doesn't seem to be what Jesus would do.

Last night, Andy & I had a beer with Mark and two other flight attendants. You know what, they were a laugh. Yes they were pretty vulgar, much was not even to my broadminded taste, but i was determined to treat them on a level. That's what Christ would have done. We've invited a few of the attendants to visit a Haitian slum with us. They seem generally interested. Why wouldn't they be!

I really hope that will happen.

Talking of the storm, I dread to think what it must be like to live in the slums when it rains like that. Its beautiful in the day time, but it's rained the last two nights. Hopefully the roads will still be passable.

I'm in the internet cafe, getting 95 pages of photocopies of the Americans application forms. The bulk of them arrive in an hour. In total we have 36 Americans (In truth I think thats too many, but I'm just thrilled to see so many people out here trying to make a difference so don;t take that a a moan!
The first family arrived yesterday. The Johnsons. Dads a man's man and we went running this morning. I like them already!

Holiday's over. Its going to get busy!