The following letter and thoughts, written by Kettly Mars were published in the New York Times, entitled “Haiti Without Walls.”

“Petionville, Haiti, Jan. 12, 2010, 4:53 p.m. A high-magnitude telluric wave twisted the ground under our feet. In just 35 seconds about 300,000 people lost their lives and more than one million souls in three cities became homeless. How eerie the huge cloud of dust rising in the dying day over Port-au-Prince, and spreading up to this suburb of the capital. How unreal the sound of car alarms blasting under the building debris.

I believe that in all bad things there is some good — if we take a moment to look, if we don’t miss the essential. Often I ask myself, was there any good in that earthquake? And then I remember the first minutes, the few hours, the two days right after the shock. Before foreign aid workers arrived loaded with survival kits and good will. Before greed turned misery into business opportunities.

In that moment, our country was on her knees; we were on our knees. It felt as if we had lost a mother. And when we looked one another in the eyes, we all felt the same thing — we were struck by the same calamity. We were a people lost in a tremor but united by a common fate.

For the first two or three days after the earthquake, we relied on one another to save the lives that could be saved, however few there were. With bare hands, survivors pulled the wounded from concrete and iron, then drove them to hospitals, or pushed them there in carts, or carried them on their backs. We shared our food and water. Money, for once, was not important, nor were last names or skin color. For a brief and enlightening moment in our lives we experienced the true meaning of brotherhood.

I want to keep forever in my mind those nights when we slept in yards and empty lots, on sidewalks or in the middle of streets. It was possible to sleep in the open without fear, for we understood for the first time that the walls and gates we used to hide behind meant nothing — they lay everywhere like crumpled paper. Those nights, the stars were very beautiful; they told us to go on living.

And although this year has been a litany of hardships, although we have known the wrath of storms, the terrors of the cholera epidemic, the frustration of being locked in an incredible political stalemate since the presidential election, I think we should remember the lessons of the earthquake. Only in fellowship can we rescue Haiti’s dream from destruction.”

I (Steve) don’t know how many times I have read this, and I never read it without getting a lump in my throat, because it’s all true. I know others who were there and read this will agree — this is the way it was.

Unlike some organizations, Haitian Island Ministries did not receive millions of dollars after the earthquake; we received just under $25,000. But with that $25,000 we were able to buy tents for those who work within our ministry and whose homes were destroyed. We were able to make repairs to schools as well as homes. We are able to seek and obtain medical care for those who were injured. And we were able to increase the support level for the feeding programs in the affected areas. Those programs served over 252,000 meals in 2010; that would not have happened without he help you provided.

Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian-born writer, said in a January 2011 Good Housekeeping article that her grandmother told her, “If there is anything you can do in a bad situation, you should at least try to do it, even if it makes sense to no one else.” This, my friends, is one of those situations and it is something we must keep doing.

The latest numbers are 317,000 dead, and 800,000 still living in tents — not much of an existence. Almost 4,000 are dead from cholera, and 200,000 are or have been sick because of it; it is almost a certainty that some of those will die, because many of them are children. In many of these areas, H.I.M. is whom they turn to.

“If there is anything you can do in a bad situation, you should at least try to do it.” We are deeply grateful for all you did in 2010 to help our friends in Haiti. We pray that whatever you do in 2011 will be a blessing to you and your families.

Serving Him together,

Steve & Terry