The media has consulted plenty of experts to attempt to explain why. CNN featured Dr. Colin Stark of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. “Poverty is what ultimately kills most people during an earthquake,” he writes.

Dr. Stark gets it.

More than half the population in Haiti lives on less than $1 a day; the average annual income is $1,300. Nearly one-quarter of Haitian children suffer from malnutrition. Only half of Haitians over the age of 15 can read and write, and less than 30 percent reach the sixth grade.

Chile has a literacy rate greater than 95 percent among its residents over age 15. Boys and girls, on average, are in school 14 years. In addition, only 2 percent of Chile’s people are living on less than $2 a day; the average Chilean earns nearly $15,000 annually.

As I said in an op-ed earlier this week in the Seattle Times, both earthquakes have brought immeasurable tragedy in people’s lives. I visited Port-au-Prince a few days following the earthquake, and I met many individuals whose lives were changed forever. I left four days later with a mixture of sadness and anger, the latter because most of the deaths would have been prevented—if Haiti hadn’t been so very poor.

In the aftermath of these tragedies, Chile will need support, but Haiti will need intensive investment, not for months, but years.

World Vision has made a long-term commitment to walking alongside Haitians as they renew and revive their country. What is God calling you to do over the long haul for the poor?

On Wednesday evening, I delivered the opening keynote at the International Forum on Christian Higher Education in Atlanta, hosted by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Preceding my speech, Bishop Desmond Tutu said in a videotaped greeting, “Your institutions exist to raise up servant leaders—a generation committed to justice and mercy—the next generation of salt and light in the world.”

University presidents will influence 1 million Christian young people graduating over the next decade. Many of these schools are already committed to equipping their students for service.

I challenged them to do more—starting with believing their students can change the world. Christ asks no less. He invites us to be change agents, “salt and light”—preservers of good and dispellers of darkness.”

What does that mean today? It means challenging racism and ethnic hatred wherever we find it. It means offering hope to homeless Haitians. It means entering the stench of the refugee camps in Darfur; rescuing girls forced into brothels in Cambodia; and ministering to the millions dying from AIDS in Africa. It means challenging preventable diseases that kill 25,000 children worldwide each day.

It’s tempting for graduates to enter fields such as business, medicine, and law and live safe, insulated lives. But there’s so much at stake in our world, and this generation has unprecedented opportunities to tackle it. More importantly, Jesus poured Himself out for the world, and His love empowers us to do the same.

How are you praying for the young people in your life? How can we encourage them to lead passionate lives that embrace Christ’s revolutionary movement to change the world?

Easter celebrates the central belief of our faith—that Christ conquered death so that we might live. This deserves some contemplation. Many denominations achieve this through Lent, 40 days of preparation for Easter. This year’s Lent season started on Wednesday of this week.

What does Lent mean to you? Giving up chocolate or caffeine? Or is it a special time for you?

Last Sunday I spoke at Marine View Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Wash. The congregation is fired up to focus their Lent observance on The Hole in Our Gospel Six-Week Quest, an interactive study based on my book. Thirty small groups are working through the curriculum and DVD. The Gospel Quest turns the major themes of The Hole in Our Gospel into a visually engaging, what-will-you-do-about-it call to understand how our individual salvation gives us new life—and draws us into God’s mission of redemption and justice for the whole world.

Lent is a good time to prepare not just for Christ’s resurrection but for God’s call on your life. And the Gospel Quest is a good tool to help you do that.

As it turns out, Lent is about giving something up: ourselves. Easter can be an opportunity to dedicate all of ourselves to Christ, to live as ambassadors for Him—right here, right now, in a world that desperately needs Him.

What are you doing to prepare your heart and our world for Easter’s miraculous message?

I do have plans on Valentine’s Day to show my wife that I love her. One of the reasons why I love her is because we share in a bigger love story: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (I John 3:16-18).

Christ showed us a different kind of love—one in which you pour yourself out without expecting anything back. There’s plenty of need for that in our world, with more than 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day and 25,000 children who die every day in ways we could help prevent.

Child sponsors are part of God’s love story. For only about $1 a day (less than the cost of a rose on Valentine’s Day!), sponsors show that God cares for children in tangible ways. And the children know it for what it really is: love.

“My sponsor’s name is Dan; he is a wonderful father and he means a lot to me because he loves me so much. That’s why he has done so much for me,” says Pathias, 12, a sponsored child in Zambia who lost his father to AIDS and lives with HIV himself.

“You’re my inspiration,” writes Sheen Mae, 16, from the Philippines, to her sponsor. “I treasure your love. I wish you could feel my happiness and see my smiles. Thank you.”

What’s your sponsorship love story? Or what are the ways you love “with actions and in truth”?

One question I began hearing a lot early on was about whether adopting Haitian children is a solution. This issue arose when I was in Haiti. I did an interview about it with MSNBC on the roof of a Port-au-Prince hotel, while strong winds and passing helicopters threatened to blow over the video tent—quite a wild experience. Trying to focus, I expressed the position of World Vision and other organizations against rushed international adoptions (other than adoptions that were already in progress before the earthquake).

Past experience informs us that the chaotic period following a major disaster is when children are most vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking. Haiti’s earthquake struck at the end of the work day when many children were not with their parents. It will take time to sort out which children are orphans and which are merely lost or separated from family. The best course of action now is to keep children in their home country and protect those who seem to be on their own while working to locate any surviving relatives.

People who yearn to rescue children from the midst of devastation do have wonderful intentions. They want to provide these children with a new start in a good home. It seems like the right thing to do. But the right thing at the wrong time can have unintended consequences. And we should take care to spare Haitian children any further pain. Find more information here, and please continue to pray for Haiti’s children.

There was another time that God was mocked in the face of suffering and evil. It happened on Calvary as Jesus Christ, God’s own son, was spat upon, beaten, and hanged on a cross. And people asked, where was God then? If he was God, why didn’t he save himself?

God had another way. On that cross, Jesus faced all the evil that ever was or ever would be. He took upon himself the sins of mankind, the evils of injustice, the pain of suffering and loss, the brokenness of the world. He felt every pain and took every punishment for every person who would ever live.

Where is God in Haiti? Christ is not distant from us in our times of suffering. He lies crushed under the weight of concrete walls. He lies wounded in the street with his legs broken. He walks homeless and hungry through the camps. He weeps uncontrollably over the child he has lost.

Where is God in Haiti? He hangs bloody on the cross: “A man of sorrows, and familiar with our suffering” (Isaiah 53:3).

“But where is hope?” we might ask. Here, alas, we need to see something not easily seen from human perspective. We, not God, are trapped in time. We, not God, see only in part and cannot yet see the whole. We, not God, must wait for that day when “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

What then must we do? Unlike God, we live in the time between the already and not yet, and we must wait until then. Until then, we are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves. Until then, we are called to comfort the afflicted; give food to the hungry and water to the thirsty. Until then, we are to shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, and grieve with the grieving. Until then, we are to care for the widow, the orphan, the alien, and the stranger.

We are to let our light so shine before others that they might see our good deeds and give glory to our Father in heaven. Until then, as the apostle Paul wrote, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors … as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Until then, we must show forth God’s deep love for Haiti.

Images of what I saw in Haiti keep replaying in my mind, as the plea I heard over and over echoes: “Don’t forget us.” That’s my fear, too—when the media spotlight turns off, what happens to Haiti’s suffering people? Their nightmare is ongoing—I got to wake up and leave.

In Miami, I met a Haitian cabdriver who was understandably heartbroken over his country’s devastation. He’s convinced that the international community must take over the rebuilding process for it to succeed. I think he’s right. This earthquake struck Haiti at its heart, affecting at least a third of the population, so it’s unlikely that the country will be able to recover by itself.

Last week, I was so moved to be among World Vision’s hardworking team on the ground in Haiti, people from many nations working together around the clock. For nearly two weeks, they have been carrying out distributions of food, water, medical supplies, and shelter supplies, and now they are setting up “Child-Friendly Spaces,” safe zones for children to play. Soon they will draw up plans, in coordination with other nongovernmental organizations, for how World Vision will participate in long-term recovery.

Soon, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the latest political news will dominate our attention. But please don’t let yourself move on to “business as usual.” Find a photo of a Haitian child and post it where you can see it often. Pray daily. Continue to give to your favorite charity.

As Kim Hjelm commented on my Facebook page “This is not just a reaction to an event … this is a new way of living. I will be part of the marathon relay team that will continue to help for years to come.” So will World Vision. Please join us!

We can’t do anything more for the dead, but it’s imperative we help survivors who have lost everything—and time’s running out. Crowds of people packed into makeshift tent communities set the scene for the spread of diseases like cholera. People need food, water, hygiene.

But today, help arrived. World Vision distributed food from the U.S. government to 500 families in Port-au-Prince. The rations included lentils, bulgur, corn-soy blend, and oil—not gourmet, but life-giving. There were some tense moments as desperate people crowded the truck. But we managed to keep control, and people got food.

The first man to receive his rations looked at me and saw “World Vision” on my shirt. He smiled and said, “Thank you.” I want to pass those words along to many of you who have given generously to Haiti emergency relief. Millions of dollars have poured in at World Vision. We will use those gifts wisely over the weeks, months, and years it will take Haiti to recover from this disaster.

People will rebound, and I’ve seen small signs of this already: children laughed and danced; street vendors began to sell their wares again. Haitians are resilient, having gone through so much in the past. Their spirit amazes and inspires me.

Driving through Port-au-Prince from the airport, the city’s devastation was unbelievable, almost apocalyptic. Imagine if our White House, plus the Capitol building, the National Cathedral, the Supreme Court, and the police headquarters in Washington, D.C., collapsed. Hard to get your head around that, isn’t it? That’s Haiti’s reality. In mere seconds, the earthquake changed the capital city forever.

I visited one of Port-au-Prince’s struggling, overburdened hospitals to help distribute medical supplies. It looked like a war zone. There were wounded people crowding the courtyards and hallways, with doctors and nurses working feverishly to treat them. As shocking as it was, I was told that this was a vast improvement from last week, when the parking lot was littered with corpses.

The hospital staff were happy to receive the medical supplies, as they’d run out of even the most basic items. A human chain formed to unload supplies from the truck to the hospital storeroom — volunteers passing boxes of antibiotics, tetanus shots, and gauze.

Then, at 4:45 p.m., the time when the earthquake struck exactly a week earlier, everybody fell to their knees and prayed and praised God. People sang “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art” in French and English.

What an unforgettable moment. That people can praise God in the midst of such suffering is a tremendous testimony to the power of God in Haiti.

May this encourage you, as you pray. God’s hand is on this broken country and its grieving, wounded people. God is moving among those who are here to help. God is here.

On the way over, I was pretty apprehensive. The closest I’ve been to a major disaster was the Asia tsunami. I visited affected countries a few months after the crisis, and although the grief there was still fresh, stability and order reigned. In Haiti, I don’t know what to expect. The situation on the ground is highly fluid.

I hope to convey a simple message to suffering families—that World Vision, faithful donors, and the international community are all ready to help them as they climb from the rubble and rebuild their lives. World Vision has worked in Haiti for 30 years, and we’re not going anywhere. We will help communities recover over the coming months and years.

Please continue to pray for Haitian families who are grieving, for children separated from their parents, for exhausted relief workers toiling around the clock. I’ll write when I can to share what I see and experience.