Faces of Haiti: JC

I recently finished reading “Walking in Broken Shoes” by Susan Magnuson Walsh. She was on a medical missions trip in Haiti during the 2010 earthquake. The book gives her first-hand account of the devastation following the 7.0-magnitude quake.

Reading the stories contained in that book brought to mind a testimony I heard when I was in Haiti. One of our Haitian translators was J.C., pictured above in the blue shirt. While we relaxed in the rocking chairs on the balcony, he told me, in his broken English, where he was during the infamous quake.

J.C. was attending university in Jacmel at the time, and was on one of the upper floors when the building began to shake. The city of Jacmel is 20 miles away from where the epicenter of the quake was (Léogâne), but the magnitude of the quake still caused some of the largest buildings in Jacmel to tremble and collapse.

Out of fear and instinct, J.C. jumps off the bench where he was studying and goes out the window. He falls several stories. He should have died or been severely injured. By God’s grace, he walks away unscathed. The student sitting on the bench next to him was crushed beneath the collapsing building and died.

Almost every Haitian has a story about how the earthquake affected them. Some of these stories are heartbreaking; others—like JC’s—clearly show God’s sovereignty and protection over all. He so clearly has a plan for JC to spare his life in such a way!