What a week of horrors! I can think of no other way to describe it. The images we’ve seen on TV of the devastation in Haiti are indescribably terrible. I’ve been trying to put myself in their place, trying to imagine how it would be if such a catastrophe happened here. While it is true that we do have a disaster plan in place, that would not stop the initial death toll from being staggeringly large.

Imagination aside, of this I am pretty certain, there will be many people, both in Haiti and around the world wherever this news has reached, many who will be saying, “Where is God in all this?” Some will be questioning if there could even be a God when such things happen. Others will be blaming God for allowing it. I think it’s really important to say, right up front, that God is alive and well, and is certainly active at this very moment in Haiti!

On this last Sunday we heard about the Israelites of old, about how they felt that God had abandoned them when they were in exile in Babylon. They felt that God had stayed behind in Jerusalem. Psalm 137 expresses their despair. “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept...” When finally they were able to return home, it was not as they remembered it. Jerusalem was in ruins, the temple destroyed. Now they were really convinced that God had left them, and the prophet Isaiah had to reassure them that God was truly with them. Not only would their land be restored. It would become light to the world. God had not abandoned his people.

How many times throughout history people suffering from oppression or the ravages of war must have felt as did the Israelites of old? How easy to say, “Where is God when we need Him?” O f coursethe truth is, God is always present, even when we can’t discern His presence.

Before the terrible events in Haiti this past week, the papers reported the death of a very elderly Dutch woman, Miep Gies. Reading about her brought back to mind a very dark time in history, WW 2, and Hitler’s so called “final solution” for the Jews, when Jews all over Europe were being rounded up, sent to concentration camps and killed by the millions.

Miep Gies described herself as “an ordinary housewife and secretary”. She was much more than that. Miep responded unquestioningly to request for help and hiding for a Jewish family. It was the family of Anne Frank, the young girl whose diary is still among the most read books in the world. Miep risked her own life to protect and feed those people. Sadly, we know that the Nazis eventually caught them, and all but Anne’s

father died in the conc entra- tion camp.

Miep refused any sugg estion that she was a hero. She said that she only did what many other Christian Dutch people had done. Another woman, Corrie ten Boom wrote a book, The Hiding Place, about how her family was involved in saving Jewish people fleeing the Nazis, hiding them in a secret room in their house. In a world where many must have been wondering, “Where is God when we need Him?” the answer is clear. God was there in the actions of people like Miep and Corrie. St. Paul wrote at length about the gifts of the Spirit, gifts given to God’s people, gifts to be used for the good of all. Surely the gifts of these women and others like them were gifts of compassion and courage. Through them, for the people they sheltered, God’s light shone out in the darkness of their lives.

And it’s that way in Haiti today, as God works through the people who are there to help, doing whatever they can to relieve unbelievable suffering.

We live in an imperfect world where terrible things happen, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, drought, famine, disease, not to mention the manmade horrors of war and violence of all kinds. It’s not cheery to contemplate, and it does cause some to ask where God can be in all this. Well, He is in the hearts of His good people who, seeing suffering around them, use whatever gifts God has given them to alleviate that suffering. And when they do this, small rays of God’s light appear even in such dreadful darkness as there is in Haiti today.

God is not absent. God is alive and well and caring for his world, through us, His people.