The Earthquake that Hit Haiti

O God, the earthquake rumbled and stunned us one and all;
Our neighbors reel in anguish while homes and buildings fall.
O God of land and water who made the earth and sky,
Amid such great destruction, we mournfully ask "Why?" 

How many folk have perished? We can't their bodies find:
Life will not be the same now for those they've left behind.
More than a million mourners are grieving to their core;
O Jesus, Friend and Savior, you suffer with the poor. 

So many folk are missing, crushed under rubble lie.
The city lies in ruins while orphaned children cry:
O Spirit, send your comfort and give us faith that cares.
For when our neighbors suffer, our lives are bound with theirs.

Text: "The Storm Came to Honduras" © 1998 Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. Adaptation "O God, that Great Tsunami" © 2004 by Peter Holden.

Adaptation "The Earthquake that Hit Haiti" 2010 by Rachel Nafziger Hartzler.  Permission given for use by those who lament with, pray for, and support relief work for people in Haiti.

Tune: PASSION CHORALE Hans Leo Hassler, 1601, Harm. Johann Sebastian Bach, 1729 ("O Sacred Head, Now Wounded").  Can also be sung to ANGEL'S STORY Arthur H. Mann, 1881 ("O Jesus, I have Promised") or any other tune with 76.76D meter.

Three women's rights leaders die in earthquake

(CNN) Three leaders in the Haitian women's movement are confirmed dead, victims of the quake. They gave women voices, fought against violence, and made rape in Haiti a crime. One of the women, Myriam Merlet was until recently the chief of staff of Haiti's Ministry for Gender and the Rights of Women, established in 1995. She died after being trapped beneath her collapsed Port-au-Prince home at the age of 53.

She wrote: "While I was abroad I felt the need to find out who I was and where my soul was. I chose to be a Haitian woman. We're a country in which three-fourths of the people can't read and don't eat properly. I'm an integral part of the situation. I am a Haitian woman.  I don't mean to say that I am responsible for the problems. But still, as a Haitian woman, I must make an effort so that all together we can extricate ourselves from them."

Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan also died in the quake.  Before 2005, rapes in Haiti were treated as nothing more than crimes of passion. That changed because of the collective efforts of these women activists - and others they inspired. With the three leaders gone, there is concern about the future of Haiti's women and girls. Even with all that's been achieved, the struggle for equality and against violence remains enormous. 

The chaos that's taken over the devastated nation heightens those worries, says Taina Bien-Aime, the executive director of Equality Now, a human rights organization dedicated to women. Before the disaster struck last week, a survey of Haitian women and girls showed an estimated 72 percent had been raped, and at least 40 percent of the women surveyed were victims of domestic violence.

Bien-Aime wrote in an email: "The most critical and urgent issue is what, if any, contingencies the relief/humanitarian agencies are putting in place not only to ensure that women have easy access to food, water and medical care, but to guarantee their protection."

A Postcard & a Prayer is compiled by Mennonite Women USA staff Rhoda Keener, Patricia Burdette, Berni Kaufman, and Lois Loflin.