Another Day, Another Tragedy

This happened way too soon.

Just two days after the Boston Marathon bombing, and now, an explosion in a plant in Texas.

The two are probably completely unrelated as far as how they both started (or at least, I hope so. I would hate for this to be a widespread attack...), but they are both tragedies that hurt us deeply. Only 2 days after losing 3, and placing over 120 more in the hospital, we now lost, potentially, 15 more, and placed another 180 people in the hospital. I can't take this carnage anymore.

But we're all here, sitting in our desks (or if you're like me, you clutter your desk and work from bed), riding our cars, going to work and/or school, eating three meals a day (or more), having healthcare located close by, and so much more. Our lives are so comfortable compared to most. And yes, these are tragedies, but there are tragedies happening all over the world EVERY SINGLE DAY.

In Iraq this past week, there were also bombings, and they killed about 46 people.

Yesterday, a bomb went off in Bangalore, India and injured 16 people.

Last Sunday, at least 20 people died in Somalia due to a bombing at the Capital.

Later that same day, a car bomb went off inside a government building, killing at least three and injuring another three.

In Syria, some fighter jets bombed cities, killing roughly two dozen civilians.

There are a million displaced people in Syria due to the fighting going on, over half of them are children.

In Venezuela, so far, 7 people have died and 61 have been reported injured, because of an election.

Two weeks ago, there was an ambush in South Sudan that killed another dozen people, at least 7 of them being civilians.

In Egypt, a cathedral was held in siege for 5 days, with Muslims and police officers attacking the Christians inside.

In Mozambique, 4 people were killed in a skirmish in attempts of freeing party members that were taken during a raid.

There are wars all over the globe now. I don't know all of them, but just to name a few: Mali, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so many more.

In Greece, migrant workers on a strawberry farm have been working for the past 6 months without any form of payment. When a group of 200 went to go ask for payment, the foreman opened fire and wounded 27 of the workers, one of them now in critical condition, and hurt another 33 in the scuffle.

In 2007, during the Kenyan elections, over 1,000 people were killed. This year brought about a new election, with fear of the same thing happening again. While this election had a much lower death toll, there were still a few dozen people killed in reaction to the election tensions.

Earlier this year, a fire broke out in Brasil, killing 232 people, with over 100 people in the hospitals.

Since November of 2011, there have been 791 violent episodes in Damascus, many of which have resulted in casualties.

In Nigeria, more than 10,000 people were made homeless last month due to the government plowing through their homes. At least one million civilians have been made homeless through similar actions by the government over the past year. 

And the list goes on and on and on and on and on.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of tragedies happening every day. Murders, rapes, children suffering from malnutrition and dying from starvation, slavery, and so much more goes on around us every day, and we don't see it. The media doesn't give it enough coverage, and we don't pay enough attention to it. It takes an enormous tragedy like a bomb or a fire that hurts hundreds in a short period of time for us to look around us and see these things happening. 

This time last year everyone was preaching Kony 2012 because someone made a cute video that stirred up our emotions. By the end of the year, no one even thought about Kony, and I bet that most of the people who bought bumper stickers and posters and pins don't even know the status of Kony and his army of child soldiers right now. It takes so much to get us to pay attention, and so little for us to lose focus. Two weeks from now, most people won't even have the marathon cross their minds.

It's sad, it really is. How can we claim to be passionate about human rights and stopping tragedies and suffering, if we can't focus on an issue for longer than the next big thing? If the Grammy's or some other big event were this weekend, we'd forget about Boston by Monday. All those Pray for Boston hashtags would be forgotten, and it would be like it never happened. Except, of course, for the people directly affected by it.

It's so easy to sit comfortable at our desks and couches and cars, and go out to eat at nice restaurants and be a jerk to the person at the drive thru window. It's easy to hashtag something or send your condolences for people. It's easy to SAY you're a good person, or it's easy to SAY that you're humanitarian and you care about everything. But when do those things that you SAY you are and you do, actually become who you are?

Good Triumphs Every Time

After last night's rant, I feel like I should take a step back and do a second post.

I was angry and upset last night, and all I could see was the bad. That's what most of us did, and that's what brings people down so much. We see something bad happen, and we see all the evil in the world. We see how twisted and sick and cruel is this world we live in.

But go rewatch the videos from last night. Not just the ones I posted, but all the ones you watched too, because if you're like me, you watched dozens of them. Go back and watch, and instead of watching the explosion and looking at the people bleeding on the ground, look at all the people running towards the explosion.

First responders were on scene immediately. No one knew if a second bomb was in place, or if anyone was going to follow up their bombs with gunfire or anything else. The two bombs were seconds apart, and when you watch videos of the first explosion, you can see people helping even before the second one goes off. And even after finding out there are more bombs, they don't stop, they keep going, keep helping. It's beautiful.

There is tremendous beauty in the midst of all the disaster.

God is so good. He never let's the devil make a move without responding with a better one.

"Look for the helpers. You'll always find people who are helping."

Sandy Hook school shooting?

• A teacher, Victoria Soto, hid her students in a closet and sacrificed her life for her students.
• The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, gave up her life in an attempt to stop the gunman and protect her colleagues.
• The school psychologist, Mary Scherlach, was also shot in this same attempt.
• Another teacher in that meeting, who's name was never released, pushed the door shut because there was no lock, so the gunman couldn't get in. She was shot through the door.
• One of the custodians, unnamed, risked his own life by running down the hallways, warning everyone to lock up and protect the children.
• A little six year old boy, Aden Licata, grabbed several of his friends and ran out the door trying to get to safety. A mother who happened to be at the school picking up her children early, saw Aden and his friends. She took them with her and they all went to the police station to wait.
• Another teacher, Kaitlin Roig, took her students to the bathroom, locked the door, and pushed a bookcase in front of the door to protect her students. She kept telling her students that she loved them, so the gunshots wouldn't be the last thing they heard.
• One of the kids hiding in the bathroom told Ms. Roig and his fellow classmates that he knew karate and would protect them.
• Abby Clements, also a teacher, opened the door to her classroom and quickly pulled in students from the hallway.
• The music teacher, Maryrose Kristopik, locked all her students into closets with instruments in front of them. She then stood by the doors, holding on the handles not to let the shooter in. 
• The librarian, Maryann Jacob, led the children to safety by crawling, and then gave them papers and crayons to keep them busy and calm.

I make a point to try and remember these names, and I intentionally try my best to forget the gunman's name. It is not worthy of recognition.

Yesterday's bombing? Yes, somebody, or even a group of people, hurt these people by setting off two bombs and having 2 others planted. 176 injured and 3 dead by the last count I saw. But there is a light in these numbers, because the good still outweigh the bad.

• People were in the hospital within 10 minutes of the first explosion.
• Allan Panter, a doctor who was just waiting for his wife to finish the race, jumped right in to start helping victims, treating them as well as possible on the spot.
• An unidentified event volunteer helped a 78 year old marathoner get up seconds after the explosion.
• All off-duty Boston police came in to help with the tragedy.
• The racers who weren't hurt kept running, and they kept running all the way to the hospital to donate blood.
• In the few hours after the attack, so much blood around the country was donated that the Red Cross issued a statement saying to schedule blood donations for a later day, because they had all the blood they needed.
• Even after the statement, people still kept piling in to donate blood, so the Red Cross started setting up future appointments for all the people queued up outside their centers.
• You can see people run towards the explosion site in the videos and start tearing away at the fences and rushing to help the injured, undeterred by the pools of blood surrounding them.
• One unidentified man took off his belt and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding of one legless individual. After making sure that individual was okay, or as okay as one could be in that situation, he turned around to help others.
• Dozens of marathoners took off their shirts to work as tourniquets  as well.
• Men carried other men, women, and children away from the scene. 
• Joe Andruzzi, former Patriots player, was one of the ones carrying away victims. His three brothers were also responders at the 9/11 bombings.
• Volunteers wheeled a countless number of victims away from the scene.
• Two soldiers who had just finished the race ran straight into the explosion.
• Carlos Arredondo, a peace activist, helped a legless man onto a wheelchair and pinched his artery all the way to the ambulance to prevent blood loss.
• Countless people opened up their homes to anyone who needed a place to stay after the attacks, as two hotels shut down as precautions. A Google document was started with numerous people offering places to stay or rides for others affected by the tragedy.
• People also offered clothes, meals, and showers.
• Restaurants around the area started offering up free meals and places to stay for those affected by the explosions of the day.
• The owner of El Pelon Taqueria was one of these, offering up free wifi, cold drinks, outlets to charge phones, and a place to stay if they didn't want to be alone. He honors his workers for not going home when they could, and those workers who were not scheduled came in to help. They also insisted that people only pay for their meals if they could.
• Make Shift Boston, an office space, opened up it's doors to the public for water, phones, and internet.
• Oleana, a restaurant, offered warm meals to those in need.
• Several airlines, including Southwest Airlines, waived their fees for changing flights for the runners and attendees.
• HopeMob, a crowdsourcing funding website, offered financial assistance to family members of victims in need of airfare. 

After everything is all said and done, I won't try to to remember the names of the people who caused this tragedy, but I will remember the amazing love and support that poured out from all over the country and beyond. That's what I want to remember. That's the light in the darkness. That is God's Hand in the tragedy. Even in the ultimate darkness, when Christ was crucified and darkness overwhelmed the earth, brought about the ultimate light, resurrection and eternal life. Because the darkness of night has to come before the light of the morning.

For every one twisted person on this planet, we have thousands more that are willing to work hard to help to undo the damage.

Because at the end of the day, good triumphs evil every time.

Praying for Boston

I am so mad right now.

I'm furious. Pissed off. Angry. The English language does not contain a single word that can describe my raging emotions right now. I. AM. LIVID!!!

How can anyone, any human being, possibly want to cause this kind of hurt upon others??? This isn't just about the Boston marathon today. This isn't just about Sandy Hook. This isn't just about Aurora. This isn't about Columbine or Virginia Tech or 9/11 or any single moment of distraught and agony in our history. This is about these sick and twisted people that can inflict this kind of pain upon others. This is about the people who hurt just to hurt. Why??

People were out there today enjoying a big event. They were having fun, celebrating. They were enjoying a beautiful, sunny day. It's Patriot's Day and the marathon is great, joyous, happy celebration. It's a day for people to get out and enjoy themselves, a holiday. And someone stepped in to turn an otherwise glorious day into a tragedy.

I just... I can't. The tears just won't stop. WHY????

I'm in pain...

This just... I have no words, only tears.

Then there were 400 people from Connecticut, for Sandy Hook, running in that race. The families were all waiting in the VIP section, right next to the finish line where the first bomb went off. Seriously?? Have these people not suffered enough?? Isn't it bad enough that 4 months ago they had already suffered losing 26 of their own?? Now today, on a yearly race, a celebration, dedicated to them, they had to experience more tragedy and heartache? God bless those poor families and grant them peace. No one deserves to suffer this much.

How could anyone want to inflict this kind of pain on their fellow man? We are all in this long battle of life together. Why?? Why intentionally inflict pain on others? Especially people who have never done anything to you?? Why shoot up a school of young, innocent children? Why bomb a race with people celebrating? Why destroy all of these helpless, innocent lives? Why make people suffer at your hand? I just don't understand. How could someone be so sadistic as to actually enjoy others' pain? I'm at a loss.

I hope we catch whomever did this, and I hope they suffer. God have mercy on their souls, because the American people sure won't anytime soon.

My prayers go out to the victims and their families. All my prayers, love, and thoughts go out to them. May they be comforted in this time of pain and suffering. May God guide them through this tribulation. Father please, reach out Your hand and comfort them. You know they need You now more than ever... We all do.