>> hello and welcome to this special edition of "christian world news" i am lee web. the psalms tell us the ocean depths lightning, hail, snow and clouds and stormy winds do god's bidding. he is sovereign, even in disaster. he tells us he is there to provide comfort when tragedy strikes. today on "christian world news" hope in crisis.

we have a terrific panel of experts, the haiti earthquake, hurricane katrina, and tsunami. george thomas usually hosts but today we are relying on his experiences reporting from disaster zones. also reporting is chief international reporter gary lane. gentleman, thank you for being us, gary, let me begin by asking you, what is the worst disaster you have been to? >> i would say the tsunami in indonesia in 2004, 2005, when we flew over the area with samaritan's purse, i had never

seen anything quite like that. >> when you see the video from japan, it reminds you? >> yes. >> george, what about you? >> what was my first earthquake? back in 1999 in taipei, taiwan. the numerous after shocks we experienced, no doubt, clearly what happened in haiti, we were there 48 hours after the earthquake. just to see the extent of devastation, haiti being the poorest country of the world. just to see the bodies that were still there on the streets in apartment buildings and the sheer magnitude of ache in the

people's hearts as they deal with the catastrophe. >> george, we talk about haiti being one of the poorest nations, natural disasters seem to be an equalizer, even in the wealthiest places in japan, they are in the same situation. >> absolutely, efrem graham request attest to this as well. there is no respecter of person whether you are poor, rich, black, white, when an earthquake hits you and in some cases a tsunami hits you, you can do all the preparations possible. at the end of the day it affects everybody. >> efrem, you have been to haiti to check on the progress, how are they doing? >> many are in the same situation like they were 15

months ago. an outbreak of chaos inside a stadium, some 2600 people are living, tg reason is because they would like to get them out of the stadium so they can prepare for soccer, they can't do that, the disaster, very difficult. on top of the hurricane, the cholera out break and another earthquake and epicenter of the earthquake is the only lace that saw extensive flooding. devastation on top of devastation. >> gary, you have covered many wars, is there a difference? are there parallels? >> rich, poor, everyone is affected by war. the difference would be on the

medical front, wounds, sh ralal, bullet wounds, different compared to earthquake, tsunami, flooding. >> people at the outset really comeing to grips in a breathtaking way with god's awesome power, is that right, george? >> in haiti, the thing that really boggled me, the ability to see people of faith, i think we have footage of this tent where entire church community, and about 500-600 of them, in a moment they lost everything. about 3 hours later, they were able to put together a make-shift camp, within a few hours of that you could see this image of people dancing, in the midst of unbelievable horrific death and absolute loss of life and possessions,

they found it in the middle of this chaos to worship god. you go into these situations and see these pictures. >> efrem, as you know, haiti, there is a great christian tradition, unfortunately they have a traditional voodoo and unbelief, have you noticed that the people of faith are getting along better than those that are not of faith? >> that is true. the more i go, the more i talk to, the amazing stories. i met one gentleman that was a former witch doctor, changed by 2 evangelists, to see what he needed in order to survive. they would go day in, day out. what he then turn today them and said a couple of weeks

after that was, i want to know the god that you serve and i want to be more like you. that gentleman is now actually working with that ministry, helping to teach young people how to fish. the amazing change in that short amount of time. he saw god at work in there life. he wanted to serve the god they are serving. he knew the voodoo wasn't real at all. >> i saw the same thing happen in pakistan, earthquake, 7.8, everything levelled. this is taliban area. as relief was taken in there, they said you are the true believers, we brought bibles in as well. they were ready. their hearts repaired for the gospel pause because of the

devastation. what does your book say about the end times? because of the work of the christians, 3 imams came to christ. they had to leave the area, it is a radical islamic area, went to other cities and baptized. >> you have witnessed that as well, george i assume? >> the northern part of indonesia, for a very long time was closed. i remember covering an earthquake in sumatra, so many of them like operation blessing, samaritan's purse, world vision, they were all christian-based organizations and saw the sea of humanity come. >> you mention these christian

relief organizations, we are going to be interviewing, representatives from 2 of these organizations. god has a habit of redeeming that which is lost. he likes to take things broken and put them back together again. stay with us as we continue our discussion on hope and crisis, church's response to god's all mighty power in natural disaster. stay with us.

>> look at everyone, it is more like people fellowshiping, a great deal has changed. it has been a blessing. >> that is a member of first united methodist church in sly dell, louisiana, their church suffered great damage after hurricane katrina. their church was so damaged as i recall, they had to have sunday worship service outside. also there was jodie geddies.

we are joined by mike from rapid response team, billy graham. christian organizations are often on the front lines of natural disasters and ready to help sometimes more than governmental organizations. jodie, that was a few hours after i arrived in louisiana, after hurricane katrina, i was amazed at the faith these folks were expressing, almost as if they were glad hurricane katrina happened. they experienced a unity among the church they would never have experienced it before. is that the kind of response you hear? >> definitely, lee. disaster is the church's finest hour. it is the very thing that rallies the community together.

not only do church goers and believers, first time in a church's life, they see sinners line up by the droves. doesn't matter if you are christian or non christian, they realize the place of shelter, safety, love and provision is a church. it is rewarding as a christian leader to work with the churches succeed at their community. >> is that your response as well, mike? >> absolutely. and add to that, it is what we are called to do as followers of christ, continue the work that christ said. john says, the work that i was sent to do, so now i send you. it is obedience. it is joy to see in the midst a crisis, god. we see so much in scriptures

and psalms. many times we see people in christ's situations and i often wonder, what do they have if they don't have god? but with god, we the count it as joy. we are not stuck with the circumstance . what we have is real. that hope is certain god is going to move. >> i guess they turned to god because jodie, they have come to the end of themselves, i guess in disasters like hurricane katrina, is that right? >> absolutely. scripture that says eternity is placed in the heart of man. we can draw out why people are drawn to church, they see non believers, they see a hope and love and drawn to that. where i can get safety, help is the knocking on the church's door. that is one of the greatest

rewards of disaster relief, helping those churches reach out to their work. >> mike, when did you start doing this work? >> right after this 9/11. so there was a group of us, 3 of us that were tasked with understanding how to blend the bibly cam and clinical and come alongside people appropriately in pain and again use that word appropriately share the gospel in a context where they were looking for hope and needed hope in christ jesus. >> jodie, when you look back on the first disaster in operation blessing and where you are now one of the leaders of this organization, what have you learned that has made you better at your job? >> that would take hours and

hours to say. one of the greatest strategies we take is to say, ask the official, the church leaders, what is the greatest need? how can we help meet that need? come in with a servant heart, how can we help meet your greatest need. that is what helps make operation blessing shine. >> i would say -->> just by having that approach, how can we help you in your greatest need. we are doing it in japan and all around the world. >> operation blessing, for example, had no infrastructure in japan. david dard was there within a matter of hours doing whatever he could. mike, i am sure in your organization, you are responding to situations where you have no intrastructure, how

do you get things done? >> there is infrastructure, it is the church. it is world way. for us, at bga, god positioned one of our festival directors living in japan part of the initial team that created the rapid response team. living on the ground several hours from the epicenter was somebody that understood the crux of what we do. god is always surprising to us, nothing ever gets by him. the sufficiency of christ. he is amazing. >> uh huh. >> wherever we go in, i was training pastors in haiti to help their congregations understand the processes that god has naturally created and

how to talk to those outside of their faith community. one of the pastors said, you don't understand, we don't have anything to give us, or give them, they'll listen to us. i said, is christ sufficient? he said well yes, you don't understand. we went to acts. what did peter and john have? >> nothing. >> but what i have, christ, they gave to the man who was crippled, healing resulted, and christ is sufficient. >> right. to mourn with those that mourn, tears, if that is all you have. >> ministry of presence. >> what is the one anecdote, jodie that has stuck with you? the one story you share with family and friends? >> story happened in lake,

florida, meeting a single mom who just came back from identifying her husband and one of her 2 boys. we were there with heavy equipment to clear her land. i'll never forget the experience of wrapping my arms around that later, maybe it wasn't the largest disaster but the most powerful for me. >> all you had was to give her a hug. >> we appreciate it. mike, you mentioned 9/11, the pastor in manhattan had to preach a sermon after 9/11. we are going to talk about that with him next.

>> joining me via skype is dr. timothy keller, senior pastor at redeemer church in new york

city. redeemer is not far from where the twin towers fell on 9/11. tim, i went back and listened to your sermon the sunday following 9/11. i can't imagine a more difficult challenge than preaching that day. >> i preached on john chapter 11. where jesus raises lazareths from the dead. it is a time of great grief, he has 2 sisters, mary and martha. when martha comes out, she says lord, if you had been here, he would never have died. jesus says i am the resurrection and life. he who comes through the father -- he gives her truth, a teaching. then mary says the very same thing.

says lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. all jesus did was weep. didn't say anything to mary. just wept. what i was trying to get across there, there is no single pathway through suffering and tragedy , that you need truth, sympathy, and love. you don't necessarily, every person is different. you don't necessarily need them in the same order, at the same time. and there is no one way to get through it. it is almost like suffering is like a set of mountains. >> it is easy to assign credit to god when good things happen. i am the first to find it difficult to see god's hand in seemingly bad circumstances. it seems to me it might be just as important to see god there as well, correct?

>> i know there are reasons. i shouldn't expect even in this life to know what they are. if god is nice enough to show me, that would be great. not necessarily insist that you see them or try to figure them out. >> your latest book, king's cross touches on thoo. talk about that if you will. >> jesus is the ultimate example, i think of this. can you imagine if you are following jesus, you are seeing him heal people, raise people from the dead. somebody said that death and disease was banished from that part of palestine for a couple of years, he did so much. he looks like he is the one that is going to unify the people and clearly from god. now he is lying on the cross after a kangeroo court convicts

him. here is what modern people would say, i don't see how god can bring any good out of this. i can't imagine people going home, looking at the most wonderful expression of god's wisdom, the cross, yet because they couldn't into their thinking, they go home and lose their faith. i can't believe in god. we know why god let jesus die. nobody questions that because we have the whole story. the real question is why did god let this or that happen to you. jesus is a perfect example there is a story. if we don't have it, that doesn't mean there isn't one. >> dr. keller, thank you for providing these insights, we

appreciate it.

>> welcome back, i began this

program by reading psalm 148. let me close with the encouraging words in 145, the lord is righteous in all his ways and loving to all he has made, the lord is near to all who call on him in truth. a lot of folks are wondering, as you have been watching this program and interviews with so-called professionals from the disaster relief programs, you are wondering, what can i do? praying is a big thing. rolling up our sleeves and offering all we can, involving prayer and maybe just a hug or your tears. that is all for this special edition of "christian world news", george thomas and wendy griffith will be back next