[Episcopal News Service] Every time I speak about Haiti, I am asked: "What is it like there?"
The only word I know is "hard."

The devastation from the Jan. 12 earthquake has not suddenly gone away. It has not been cleaned up, and the people are not yet better. There truly is no word in any language to adequately describe the scope and horror of this tragedy.

Every time I am in Haiti, this linguistic challenge hits me in the gut again. It hits when I stand among the ruins and feel the rubble beneath my feet; when I travel about the country and see the buildings that still contain bodies; when I walk by the tent cities where tens – no, hundreds – of thousands of people still live without electricity or sanitation or water or sufficient food or protection; when I see children on the street who should be in school, and who were in school, until their schools came crashing down; when I am told of yet another friend who was killed.

Yet even in all this hardship, over and over again I hear my Haitian friends and colleagues say the same thing: "God saved us for a reason. God saved us to take care of our people and rebuild our country."

What I hear is the determination of the people not only to persevere, but also to thrive.
Everyone knows what needs to be done; everyone dreams of what can be done. These are the people to whom I listen the most, the Haitians who, when the earthquake tore apart their lives, did not curse, but instead cried out to Jesus; who every night since the quake have joined with friends and strangers to sing praises to God. Haiti is their country, and they are the ones who need to guide the rest of us in what needs to be done and how. So even though it is hard for us (there's that word again), we have to listen, to wait, to be patient, to be willing to let Haitians guide us instead of us telling them what to do.

Another thing that is just plain hard: ignoring those who claim that, by their work alone, the Haitians have been saved and are being saved and will be saved. Evangelists are using this tragedy to claim that they are ones who, in one visit, converted tens or hundreds of thousands (or even, as one preacher put it, millions) of Haitians to Christianity, disregarding the fact that Haiti is a Christian nation. Some aid workers and missionaries are determined to proclaim that they have all the answers as to what needs to be done when, how and why. Still others even now are discussing how to remake Haiti's government, despite the fact that Haiti has its own constitution.

It is hard (hear that word yet again?) to ignore those who are determined to remake Haiti in their own image, who refuse to recognize that Haiti and Haitians have their own image.

But no matter how much I try, it's still hard to ignore those voices. It seems I spend at least half of each day combating them, thanking people for their offers of help but telling them, "No, thank you," when those offers come with strings attached that will serve only to bind up the people of Haiti instead of setting them free.

My heart is in Haiti. From the time I arrived, I was welcomed into the Haitian family. I have friends there, people about whom I care deeply. I believe them when they say God saved them for a reason.

And I believe that our role in the rebuilding of the kingdom of God in Haiti, in what Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin calls our "new creation," is to demonstrate our faith first by listening, then by partnering with the Haitians. They will know us as Christians not by our words, but by our deeds; not by our boasting, but by our willingness to decrease so that the kingdom can increase.
Building this new creation will not be easy. This is a marathon, one that will take years. The best way we can run this race is to stretch our hearts and minds by listening, waiting patiently while the earth still groans and walking humbly with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And that, like the devastation, is, for lack of any better word, hard.

The Rev. Lauren Stanley is an Episcopal Church-appointed missionary in Haiti and Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin's liaison in the United States.