Ring. "Hello?"

Friday's frenetic pace did not stop. When I finally walked through the door, Sue handed me the phone to speak to a newspaper reporter who had been holding. After that, someone called and told me to check under the front door mat of my house. Huh? There I found a one-hundred dollar bill. I told Sue I wanted to check under our bushes and rocks.

Friends stopped by offering hugs, prayer, and money. Someone from Verizon picked up on our efforts and offered a Blackberry global phone for my use while in the wiles of Haiti. (They even sent a representative to my home the next day to deliver it and inservice me on its capabilities and use. They even provided me with three fully-charged back up chargers, given the probability of not having electricity where we would be).

I slept very little that night, for obvious reasons. The biggest reason, however, was not a spinning head nor visions of my things-to-do list. Sleeplessness that night (and every night since, for that matter) resulted out of the realization that this was not about me. I could not have scripted what was happening in my life. I would have been crazy to even think I could pull something like this off. No, what I was realizing was that I had found myself in the middle of a MUCH greater drama. A drama that transcended the talents and time frames of a guy just minding his own business a few days prior. No, this definitely was not about me. It wasn't about planes, nor gifts, nor doctors, nor phones. It wasn't even about Haiti.

It was about what God could (and would) do.

I told someone yesterday on the phone that I felt like I had been in a privileged front row seat to an exciting God-drama. Reflecting on that statement, I don't think it was quite accurate. I wasn't in the front row. I was IN the drama.

Saturday was chock full. Phone calls in. Phone calls out. Emails back and forth. Communications with missionaries in Haiti who were already boots-on-the-ground, carefully surveying and calculating appropriate sites for the emergency response medical presence we would within days establish. Logistics, logistics, logistics. Don't get me wrong... I love logistics. I've led plenty of teams to Haiti over the past 20 years and I can do teams and I can do logistics. I've just never compressed this many logistics into this short of a time frame for this magnitude of a crisis. My temples pounded with excitement for what God was up to.

My team came together. Doctors, nurses, pastors and assorted other non-medicals fell into place. I can remember making at least four calls to people who told me that just prior to me calling, they had been praying like this, "God, if you want me to go, I'll go, but you'll have to provide."

Ring. "Hello?"