The earthquake in Haiti on January 12 brings one emotional aftershock after another. The images streaming across the television are earth shattering-mothers screaming for their babies, children wandering helplessly, the dead laying in the street,buried under ruble, piled in mass graves.
The devastation became personal with the news that one body buried in the ruble was Ben Larson, who was a shy little boy with melt your heart eyes when I met him at the age of 5. With the blink of an eye he grew up to be a passionate, joy-filled, young man who sought to serve his loving God by accompaniment with those Jesus chose to hang out with; the poor, the disenfranchised and the excluded. His life flowed on with endless song as he sang God's Good News into the hearts of all.
Ben, a senior seminarian at Wartburg Theological Seminary, traveled with his wife, Renee, and his cousin, Johnathan, to Haiti to learn and walk with the people of the Eglise Lutherienne d'Haiti (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Haiti). All three were in trapped in the ruble of the earthquake. Renee and Johnathan escaped and heard Ben singing God's praises as he died.
My mother's heart weeps with Ben's parents, Judd and April, and aches for Ben's sisters, Katie and Amy, who have lost the ability to create more memories of their brother and whose children will not be able to bask in the playful spirit of their Uncle Ben. Renee's pain with all the hopes and dreams of young love is beyond my comprehension.
Both Ben's passion for walking in accompaniment with the poor and his death, call me to accompany the people of Haiti through the process of rebuilding and it also renews my passion to accompany those who are grieving. Both the people of Haiti and Ben's family are in the life long process of rebuilding their lives, lives that are forever changed. They need people to walk along side them, to sit with them on the mourner's bench, to bring God's love in the flesh.
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