Dry bones in Haiti’s rubble

The Spirit of the LORD set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” (Ezek. 37)

Katie Rowland just wrote the following post: The sun beats down on dusty Port-au-Prince as I follow Karl on foot through the city. We weave through street vendors and are careful to stay out of the way of colorful tap-taps bouncing down pot-holed streets. As we walk on, all I can think is this: in Haiti, life goes on amidst the rubble.

Karl points out the huge hospital complex on our right. “Hundreds of nursing students died there, where the tents are now.” Outside the gates is a group of probably 40 women dressed in church clothes. “What is that church group of women doing?” I ask Karl. “Ah yes – they are going to visit and pray for the sick in the hospital.” This is just one of the ways in which I’ve seen the church in Haiti come together to meet the needs of their country.

We pass the ruined presidential palace, the ruined justice buiding, the ruined finance building…all the government buildings, brought down by the 45-second quake in January. They haven’t been rebuilt yet; I guess because it would look bad for the government to fix their own buildings first, while so many remain displaced.

We arrive at our destination: where a building once stood. It was a school, and more. Karl was teaching English here when the earthquake hit. He and eight others escaped, and nearly 100 inside the building died. The rubble has since been removed; all that’s left is a cracked and filthy foundation. Karl says the pancaked rubble was as tall as a man.

On either side are destroyed buildings, rubble remaining. Karl climbs atop the rubble and I follow. He starts shifting something around with his foot…it’s a human bone. Judging by its size and shape, I guess it may be a femur.

“See the clothes there, from the bodies. The bodies rotted away and were eaten by dogs. So many people died here, beautiful young people,” Karl says. His voice has a strain to it I’m not familiar with, even after working with him on multiple occasions. “These bones were probably the bones of one of my English students.”

I can’t seem to pry my eyes away from the bones. Nearby is a pair of sport shoes. Other, smaller bones are strewn around. I can see the teeth marks the street dogs made in taking advantage of free, abundant meals in the months following the earthquake.

As I look down at the bones amidst the rubble and wonder how many other bones and bodies are yet to be uncovered in the thousands of ruined buildings that have yet to be cleaned up in the city, I think again: in Haiti, life goes on amidst the rubble.

The passage from Ezekiel 37 that we’ve been praying over Haiti becomes real in front of my eyes. We’ve been prophesying life into the spiritually dry bones of Haiti; as life in Haiti goes on, and the church continues to look to God for strength and guidance in the rebuilding process, I know God will be faithful to this country. He will be faithful to breathe onto these dry bones so that the spiritually dead people of Haiti may come to life in Christ.

4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath [a] enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.'”