Its the faces that stay with me....
"No, I will not abandon you or leave you as orphans in the storm. I will come to you." John 14.18
Singing and Praying at Night in Port-au-Prince
by David L. Wilson for MR Magazine
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan. 13 -- Several hundred people had gathered to sing, clap, and pray in an intersection here by 9 o'clock last night, a little more than four hours after an earthquake had devastated much of the Haitian capital. Another group was singing a block away, on the other side of the Hotel Oloffson, where I was camping out.
I couldn't make out many of the words. "Alleluia" was the refrain for some of the hymns the group at the crossroads sang. A minister was preaching to the other group about Bondye ("God") and kretyen ("Christians"). The congregants replied with bursts of song.
There were frequent aftershocks. With each tremor, the singing stopped and the singers wailed; after several minutes the hymns would resume. Many of the people in the streets had lost their homes, but even those whose houses weren't affected sat outdoors for fear of what might happen if they were inside when the aftershocks came.
Earlier in the night I was listening to the singing with a young Haitian American at the hotel. "Haitians are different," he said, referring to the singing. "Its a sense of community."
They were remarkably in tune with each other...The beautiful music continued through the night.
