Last day of school for the year at one of our schools and some of the kids had finished their exams. What better than a kind of dance off? I jumped in. I lost a number of times. I will be practicing…

Flying to Haiti tomorrow. Didn’t think I’d be able to; the airport has been closed because of demonstrations around the election. American Airlines starts flying again tomorrow. Anxious to be there talking and working with friends and colleagues. (There are regular updates from colleagues on our Haiti Partners blog.)

There are always requests that come in for carrying things down. This time: mail, some Creole books on counseling and trauma, rehydration kits (for colleagues and friends to potentially get them through the initial stage of cholera), a three-hole punch,rechargeable AA and AAA batteries, some dresses for our goddaughter, and other things from lists from different people that I’ll (hopefully) rediscover in the next few hours.

Back-up my laptop: always try to remember that one too, since I hate being anxious about such a dumb thing when I’m there.

Tense and tough times continue in Haiti. Of course in many ways the packing list, the backing up, it all seems too small or trivial in the face of the overwhelming circumstances people are dealing with. On the other hand, what can we do other than focus on what we can do–and pay attention to the details and do it well.

During this past year I wrote my second book, “AFTER SHOCK: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken.”

It’s about (alas, putting something into a sentence what you hope necessarily took 40,000 words) stories from Haiti and my own wrestling with faith, suffering, and doubt after the Haiti earthquake. I think/hope it’s meaningful for anyone who deals with these big questions or with crises of faith (even if you have no connection to Haiti).

It comes off the press the first week of January, so should (if you so choose) be available to arrive to you by mid-January at the latest. I’ll include a few links here below:

See a video for the book over in the right column.

This is a new website, as of today, which I hope can be a good way to connect.

Some early endorsements (for which I’m incredibly grateful) here.

An excerpt of part of a chapter here.

You can pre-order from Amazon here.

Look forward to sharing this with you and hearing your thoughts. Thanks.

(Recently written for Huffington Post.)

The litany of horrors somehow won’t end: an earthquake kills 230,000; 80 percent of people already living on less than $2 a day; cholera spreading with help from a hurricane and killing 1,000 so far. The stats only hint at the scale of ongoing suffering in Haiti.

I don’t know if Pat Robertson repeated his comments again this time, and I don’t care. He foolishly blames the victims and creates a monstrous god with his logic–a god that punishes by earthquakes and outbreaks.

But it’s all just science. It’s straddling fault lines and it’s drinking water tainted by fecal matter. It’s history, with vulnerability continuing from slavery’s exploitative legacy and abuse of power from every side.

Yet, try as I might, I can’t help agreeing with Robertson on one thing: events like these provoke the big questions.

I’ve been working in Haiti for eight years (lived there, now travel back and forth). More conversations today with friends facing all of this. Our organization’s work is education and we make tangible, encouraging progress when the focus is tight on, say, our seven elementary schools.

But when you pull back to the wide angle shot, in 3D, panning over a million people still homeless and over the one child dying of diarrhea when she could be saved then, well, I’m dancing cheek to cheek with Qoheleth, that Hebrew poet of despair who said there is a time for everything. But a time for all of this?

The most important thing in a crisis is obviously to help –and help well.

And what about in a crisis of faith, when reality crashes in on however we see the world? The tsunami was far away for me. This has been up close. I’ve wrestled with this during a relentless year.

For a Christian, which is my own perspective, are cracks revealed in faith, or does the suffering all fit within faith’s jagged explanations and hope?

For an Atheist or Agnostic, is this clinching proof, or is there a reality of love and grace present even in the suffering that might unsettle that position? From a distance I imagine it looks like confirmation, but it might or might not be unsettling up close, where the suffering is unbearable but where I also see friends find strength and generosity because they trust in God’s presence even in the worst conditions.

Lots of answers to these questions are predictable because suffering is often just another Rorschach test of faith: it confirms and provides a rhetorical tool for people on either side of the debate to claim superiority and whack the opponent’s idiocy. (See my comments on Pat Robertson or see below in “comments” what some will probably say of my still naively clinging to faith.)

But for many of us, whatever our thoughts on God, these moments of crisis cause something different — a pause to confess that we’re baffled, angry, sad and just don’t understand very much.

As a Christian, I hope that faith can sometimes consist of finding nothing left to pray except to echo the words of the one I call savior, and loudly scream or softly whisper or pitifully wonder: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken them?”

Because if this isn’t faith, then maybe I don’t believe.

Earlier this year, as part of the release of this book, there was a chance for six people to win a free trip to Haiti. There were over 80 essay submissions. Most of them were really thoughtful. It was an honor to read them.

And then I realized what a dumb idea the whole thing was when having to say “no” to about 74 people. Alas. But six great people came on the trip with me (along with my friend and fantastic editor, Dave Zimmerman). We had a really meaningful time and have stayed in touch.

For those who weren’t able to come, I’m sorry it wasn’t possible. There were many more people who wrote essays who I wanted a chance to meet and take the trip with.

Really grateful to everyone at Haiti Partners and InterVarsity Press who helped make this possible.

Because I’ve been behind on everything this year, I didn’t get to post about this. And for those interested in meeting the people and reading the essays of those who came on the trip in May this year, click here.