What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared
to what lies within Us

I abhor feeling powerless. It bothers me to my core.

And the more I read, watch, view and discuss the unspeakable upset that has struck Haiti, the more saddened I become. I have always maintained that I employ words to lend a figurative hand, to spread the news, to help garner understanding. And with my tattoo on my left tricep reading “Write for Change,” I type this. But I’m truly dispirited this time around.

How can we even chalk up to what is occurring in Haiti right now? It’s truly unfathomable; we cannot relate in the slightest. Prior to the earthquake, Haiti was the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. The infrastructure was already poor, the resources tapped, the poverty pervasive. And same is the story with violence, corruption and pain. Disaster after disaster has hit Haiti in the past.

As I peruse the news and pictures (shockingly graphic and real photos and raw video footage, making inroads with showing dead bodies in the media) I feel a great ache. I watch with a pit in my stomach churning my insides. As chaos runs rampant, without fuel or communications in the small Caribbean nation with its power grids knocked down, its hospitals, prisons and presidential palaces laying in rubble, I look on feeling utterly powerless.

It’s a terrible feeling. I can’t do anything. And, for the first time in a long time, I’m questioning the effect of writing about it. It has shaken my world, my mantra.

As a writer with Free The Children, our team has sent out a rescue relief team to Haiti this morning, including Craig Kielburger, to aid in the process of immediate, but also long-term reconstruction. I feel good about this. I also feel good about the world really taking notice of what is occurring in Haiti right now. I’m amazed by the efforts of getting information out via Twitter and social media networks – that’s a glowing light, indeed. I’m happy about the number of people who are donating to rescue relief organizations like Red Cross, World Vision and Partners in Health, which Free The Children has partnered with. I’m happy to see that you can help by texting. You can donate $5, by texting “Yele” to 501501 to donate to Wyclef Jean’s Yéle Foundation. I’m comforted by all this.

Although all this helps me continue to type, I still feel that pit. Time is running out for many Haitians that are still trapped under large rubble or need immediate surgery. The people that can die from thirst and disease if aid doesn’t respond in time. The effort is so enormous that everyone – this is when the world needs to shrink and concentrate – needs to lend a hand and do what they can.

I’m doing what I know I can. Join me in doing what you can.