Fran Weil: An Inspired Journey

Recently, I met a delightful woman named Louise, who came to the Calvary Perfect Paws Pet Ministry from some miles away to see what we were all about.

Louise -- a spritely and articulate widow -- lives with her devoted Yorkshire terrier, Coco.

And, like her self-assured little dog – all four pounds of her --Louise is wonderfully calm, self-contained and self-reliant.

So, Louise told me, when her church offered to draw together a group of five women volunteers to travel to Haiti to help with relief efforts that are still going on, a year after the devastating 7.0 earthquake it sustained, she raised an enthusiastic hand and opted to go.

Why? “Why not,” she laughed.

Her children were concerned. They worried that Haiti was so far away, communications were so difficult, and that conditions would be challenging and downright unpleasant. They worried that their Mom would be too much at risk.

But Louise was determined. Neither the threat of political unrest, nor the coming rain season, nor the danger of cholera or the many other serious diseases that rage in the devastation that is Haiti today, were going to deter her from going and doing something to help.

So, she left Coco with a relative and off she went, to do something she had never done before: help build wooden shelters for refugees who lived in tents, to help them survive through the coming rainy season.

What impressed her the most, she says of this “life transforming experience,” as she reverently refers to it, was the unquestioning faith and pure trust in God that she witnessed from the people who suffered all that devastation. In their daily lives, yes, and in their regular and deeply felt worship services, the people of Haiti Louise got to know, displayed the truest, most unshakable trust in God.

My new friend – a confident spiritual being – was amazed to see how firmly and matter-of-factly the Haitians she met displayed their trust that God would lead them out of misery and provide better days.

There were no recriminations; no anger or cries of ‘why us?’ Instead there was a solid trust that God would be at their sides while they rebuilt.

“Some people live lost,” said Louise. “It’s hard to live God 24/7.” But the Haitians -- ravaged by loss by earthquake -- took comfort in living ‘found and cared for’ by God. “There is comfort in the feeling of not having to do things alone. They have God, and they trust in Him.”

I can’t help but think that God puts people like Louise directly in our path to remind us to live ‘treasured and cared for’ by God … and most of all, to trust.

It’s like the unknown scribe said, “No God, no peace. Know God, know peace."