Since January, people in various corners of the world have been buffeted by a season of storms and natural disasters– hurricanes, tsunamis, blizzards, flooding and mudslides. This has been one faith-fortifying winter for lots of people who have had to call on their inner resources to survive hardship and, in far too many cases, the deaths of loved ones.

 More than a dozen hurricanes of increasing intensity have caused more than 250,000 deaths and destroyed countless homes and other property in the first two months of this year. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12 in poverty-ridden Haiti is said to account for about 230,000 of those deaths.

It is taking me a while to wrap my thoughts around the latest massive earthquake that sent vibrations of concern throughout the world. The 8.8 earthquake that struck in Chile early Saturday morning was so powerful that it moved the earth on its axis and shortened the day by microseconds. It was the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history and it unleashed far-reaching and devastating tsunamis, whose towering waves destroyed what the quake spared in several of Chile’s beach towns.

Fortunately, the quake didn’t strike in as heavily populated area as it did in Haiti, and fewer people died in Chile, nearly 800 at last count. Chile had a much stronger infrastructure with better built buildings than Haiti, the results of lessons learned from an earlier deadly quake in 1960. ( We all should learn from our past disasters.)

One family from Haiti survived the devastation there and fled to sanctuary with a relative in Chile, only to find themselves confronted by another, more forceful quake. They are safe but rattled to their core.

When Luigene Philomene, who is in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, heard that his college-age  daughter had been in the Chile earthquake, he thought of a Haitian saying that loosely translates as “we saved her from the river and she ended up in the sea.”  Now he feels she has divine protection, he told the Associated Press.

“God is looking for out for us,” he said. “Our family didn’t die in Haiti so they aren’t going to die in Chile either.”

What, if anything, is this season of unsettling disasters trying to tell us?

Just think about it — earthquakes in the U.S. in California, Central Oklahoma and Arkansas and Illinois, on far-away Solomon Islands, in Central America’s Guatemala and El Salvador, then in Japan, Russia, Haiti and Chile.  Blizzards blanketing and reblanketing the Northeast and snow covering the usually snowless South. Record amounts of snow fell throughout the country in January and February, so much so that on Feb. 12  49 of the 50 states had snow on the ground.

In  a news report from NBC’s Ann Curry,  a Chilean women stood in her living room and surveyed the damage from the quake and ensuring tsunami. “Too many people get  caught up in material things,” said the woman, “and we should value more than those things.”  Curry said the disaster in Chile moved people to find their inner strength.

With a resilient spirit, the woman said her family will survive with “the force of love from caring for your  family, from God.”

In a couple of weeks, winter officially will morph into spring where I’m certain new weather wonders await us. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the sunshine and the rain, and make the best of any other weather that comes my way. I’ll take courage, remembering the examples of the millions of people who with resilience and faith withstood this winter’s elements with every bit of strength they could muster.

 “Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy—your work becomes a dance with light and weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.”  –Annie Leibovitz

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1. Haiti needs our prayers, our help
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Hurricanes, food crises and tropical storms have buffeted the Caribbean nation in recent years, each time leaving it worse off than before. And Tuesday the quake in Port-au-Prince with a magnitude of  7.0 begged the questions of why and how much can one small, acutely impoverished place bear? Why in Haiti where 80 percent of  the nation’s nearly nine million people live below the poverty line? What’s going to happen now in Port-au-Prince, which was about 10 miles from the center of  the quake, and where two million people lived?

 But rather than dwelling on such queries, now is the time for offering  prayers and providing help.

I traveled to Haiti three decades ago and was struck by how palpable and painful poverty was there. I went there with an Atlanta  missionary group and got a close-up look at the despair and overwhelming need. I visited orphanages, schools, churches and even took in a soccer game. I walked through the shantytowns of Port-au-Prince and enjoyed the lush view from the hills of Pétionville. I visited artists workshops, and soaked in the vivid colors used in paintings and marveled at the skill of woodcarvers. The longer I stayed the more I saw how creative and resilient people were there.

It’s going to take that resiliency and great faith for Haitians to overcome this. And they cannot do it alone. President Obama directed his administration “to respond with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort ” to save lives. “The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and to deliver the humanitarian relief — the food, water and medicine — that Haitians will need in the coming days,” he said. 

The president also urged citizens to contribute to the pressing  humanitarian efforts as soon as possible. Already social networks, like Twitter, have raised thousands of dollars. Wyclef Jean, a Haitian-born hip-hop artist, and other celebrities are soliciting financial donations as well.

 ”I cannot stress enough what a human disaster this is, and idle hands will only make this tragedy worse,” said Jean in a statement. “We must act now. … Haiti needs your prayers and support.”

Contribute what you can, as soon as you can. And pray for the people of Haiti.

Related posts:

1. Miracles and faith feeding Haiti’s spirit
2. Memorial Day remembrances and prayers
3. Weather’s got me wondering